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MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 
AND THE BORDER COUNTIES 




VALLE CRUCIS ABBEY. 



[Frontispiect 



MOTOR TOURS 

IN 

WALES & THE BORDER 
COUNTIES 



^feiiii 






With Photographs hyo 

R.DeS.Stawell 



BOSTON 

L.C.PAGE & COMPANY^ 

1909 



MAY 16 1984 






Hi- 16^1011 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

SHROPSHIRE . . . . . 1 



II 
NORTH WALES .... 65 



III 
THE HEART OF WALES . . .135 



IV 

SOUTH WALES . . . .163 



V 
WYE VALLEY ..... 223 



ILLUSTEATIONS 

VALLE CRUCis ABBEY . . FrontispiecB 

FACING PAGE 

LUDLOW CASTLE .... 4 

THE FEATHEES HOTEL, LUDLOW . . .5 

TUDOR DOORWAY, LUDLOW CASTLE . . 6 

THE ROUND CHAPEL, LUDLOW CASTLE . . 7 

ENTRANCE TO HALL IN WHICH " COMUS " WAS 

FIRST PERFORMED ... 10 

STOKESAY CASTLE . . . . .11 

OLD STREET IN SHREWSBURY ... 22 

RICHARD BAXTER'S HOUSE, EATON CONSTANTINE . 23 

BUILDWAS ABBEY .... 28 

MADELEY COURT . . . . .29 

HAUGHMOND ABBEY .... 38 

WENLOCK PRIORY, ST. JOHN's CHAPEL . . 39 

WENLOCK PRIORY, CHAPTER HOUSE . . 42 

vii 



viii ILLUSTRATIONS 



PACING PAGE 



BISHOP PERCY'S BIRTHPLACE, BRIDGNORTH . 43 

WHITTINGTON CASTLE .... 64 

THE LLEDR VALLEY, FROM THE HOLYHEAD ROAD . 65 
THE OLD CHAPEL, BETTWS-Y-COED . . 82 

THE LLUGWY AT BETTWS-Y-COED . . .83 

CONWAY CASTLE . . . . 9Q 

THE PASS OF NANT FFRANCON . . .91 

THE MENAI BRIDGE, FROM ANGLESEY . . 102 

CARNARVON CASTLE .... 103 

DOLBADARN CASTLE .... 106 

SNOWDON, FROM CAPEL CURIG . . . 107 

NEAR BEDD GELERT .... 120 

GATEWAY OF HARLECH CASTLE . . . 121 

THE MAWDDACH, FROM TYN-Y-GROES HOTEL . 134 

LLANIDLOES ..... 135 

ARCHWAY AT STRATA FLORIDA . . . 148 

NEAR GLANDOVEY ..... 149 
THE mayor's HOUSE, MACHYNLLETH . . 156 

THE RIVER DULAS ..... 157 



ILLUSTRATIONS ix 



FACING PAGE 



THE PASS OF CORRIS, NEAR TAL-Y-LLYN . .158 

BALA LAKE ..... 159 
CAERPHILLY CASTLE . . . .172 

BEAUPRE CASTLE .... 173 

EWENNY PRIORY ..... 180 

NEATH ABBEY ..... 181 

BRECON ...... 186 

gateway, kidwelly castle . . . 187 

goscar rock, tenby .... 196 

manorbier castle, near tenby . . 197 

entrance tower, pembroke castle , . 202 

pembroke coast .... 203 

carew castle . . . ... 208 

st. david's cathedral and ruins of the 

bishop's palace .... 209 

ST. mary's college, ST. david's . . 212 

ST. david's CATHEDRAL : INTERIOR . . 213 

KILGERRAN CASTLE, NEAR CARDIGAN . . 222 

THE WYE NEAR ITS SOURCE . . . 223 



X ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING PAGE 

CONFLUENCE OF THE WYE AND THE MARTEG 

NEAR RHAYADER . . . .234 

HEREFORD ..... 235 

THE PREACHING CROSS, HEREFORD . . 238 

ROSS FROM WILTON .... 239 

MONNOW BRIDGE, MONMOUTH . . . 250 

RAGLAN CASTLE, ENTRANCE TOWER . . 251 

THE MOAT, RAGLAN CASTLE . . . 254 

LLANTHONY PRIORY .... 255 

INTERIOR OF LLANTHONY PRIORY, SHOWING THE 

EAST END ..... 258 

TINTERN ABBEY .... 259 

TINTERN ABBEY . . . . . 266 

CHEPSTOW CASTLE .... 267 



Much of the material of this book has appeared in 
the Car Illustrated, and is here reproduced by the kind 
consent of Lord Montagu. 



SHORT RUNS IN SHROPSHIRE 



SHORT RUNS IN SHROPSHIRE 

rpiHERE was once a tramp who said — 
-■- " Och, now, it's true what I'm tellin' 
ye ; I never got a bit o' good out o' me life 
till I took to the road ! " 

He was quite serious about it. He was a 
nice tramp, with a fine sense of romance 
and a large trust in the future, and on 
this first day of the tour his words ring 
in my head above the rush of the wind and 
the throbbing of the engine. For though 
all the days will be good, this first day is 
surely the best. To be on the road again ; 
to have one's luggage behind one and all 
the world in front ; to watch the villages 
slipping by and mark their changing cha- 
racter; to saunter through strange towns 
and swing across great, desolate moorlands ; 
to pause at some attractive inn, or eat sand- 

3 



4 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

wiches and sunshine by the wayside — this is 
the first day. History and the camera must 
wait ; the first day must be given up to the 
sheer joy of the road. 

So, as we shall not be able to hurry in 
Shropshire, seeing that there history can- 
not be ignored, we shall do well to cross 
its border in the evening, and spend the 
night in Ludlow. We will drop gently 
down the hill by Ludford House, and cross 
the Teme when the light is growing dim, 
and we can only tell by the deepening of the 
shadows in the trees on the left that the 
castle stands among them. Then we will 
climb a short, steep hill into the town 
through the only one of the old gates 
that is still standing, turn to the right 
through the Bull Ring, and draw up before 
the famous carved front of the " Feathers." 

Here in this little town, in its historic inn, 
in its church and its great castle, we may 
find the concentrated essence, as it were, of 
the glamour of Shropshire — that borderland 
where the local stories have helped to 
make the history of England, and the 
quiet towns have seen wild deeds of 




THE FEATHERS HOTEL, LUDLOW. 



SHORT RUNS IN SHROPSHIRE 5 

courage and horror, and the fields have 
been red with blood ; where every tiny 
village has its own tale of love or battle, 
of fair lady or fugitive king. This very 
house, the "Feathers," has a world of 
romance in its timbered walls and panelled 
rooms, for it is far older than the beau- 
tiful Jacobean chimney-piece before which 
we shall presently dine. These moulded 
ceilings and elaborate carvings, it is said, 
were once the property of a member of 
that Council of the Welsh Marches that 
Edward TV. established to bring order into 
the affairs of this stormy neighbourhood, 
where the " Lords Marchers " had hitherto 
taken what they chose, and kept it if they 
could. It is said that the English King 
once asked by what warrant the Lords 
Marchers held their lands. "By this 
warrant," said one of them grimly, draw- 
ing his sword — and the inquiry went no 
further. 

The President of this Council lived in 
the great castle that still stands so impos- 
ingly above the Teme, with its outer and 
inner baileys, its Norman keep and curious 



6 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

round chapel, and all its long, long 
memories. 

Within these grey walls we may dream 
of many things, both pitiful and gay : of 
all the children who have played and the 
poets who have written here ; of young 
Prince Arthur, who died here ; of his 
bride, Katherine of Arragon ; of poor 
Princess Mary — "my ladie Prince's grace," 
as they called her quaintly — the Queen of 
blood and tears. Edward TV. and his 
brother Edmund, dressed in green gowns, 
played in these courts as boys, and wrote 
a letter to their "right noble lord and 
father," begging him daily to give them 
his hearty blessing, and to send them some 
fine bonnets by the next sure messenger ; 
and here on the right is the roofless tower 
whose crumbling walls are haunted by the 
most touching memories in all Ludlow. 
For these weed-grown stones have echoed 
to the voices of Edward IV.'s little sons, 
who lived and laughed here with no 
thought of that grimmer Tower that is 
connected for ever with their names. There 
is still existing a wonderful letter written 




TUDOR DOORWAY, LUDLOW CASTLE 



SHORT RUNS IN SHROPSHIRE 7 

by the King to "his Castle of Lodelowe," 
in which he gives the most minute instruc- 
tions as to the education and general 
deportment of the Prince of Wales — not 
forgetting the baby's bedtime. His Majesty, 
indeed, was definite on all points. 

"We will that our said son have his 
breakfast immediately after his mass ; and 
between that and his meat to be occupied 
in such virtuous learning as his age shall 
suffer to receive." 

His age at this time was three years. 
Not only was the virtuous learning to 
occupy him from breakfast till dinner, but 
during the latter meal " such noble stories 
as behoveth to a prince to understand and 
know " were to be read aloud to him ; and 
'* after his meat, in eschewing of idleness," 
he was to be " occupied about his learning " 
again. It is a relief to read that after his 
supper he was to have " all such honest dis- 
ports as may be conveniently devised for his 
recreation." At eight o'clock his attendants 
were " to enforce themselves to make him 
merry and joyous towards his bed " ; and, 
indeed, after so hard a day of virtuous 



8 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

learning and noble stories and honest dis- 
ports, the poor child must have been glad 
to get there ! 

Later on, when Sir Henry Sidney was 
President of the Council, this ground 
where we are standing was trodden by 
his son Philip, the pattern of chivalry, 
who " fearde no foe, nor ever fought 
a friend " ; and it was through that door- 
way at the top of the inclined plane — 
then a flight of marble steps — that little 
Lady Alice Egerton, not knowing that she 
was on her way to immortality, passed 
on the evening that she took part in the 
first performance of Comus, which Milton 
had written for her. 

It is curious that in this venerable town 
so many of our thoughts should be claimed 
by the very young. Ludlow Castle, as one 
sits here thinking of the past, seems to be 
peopled with the ghosts of children. And 
even in the church whose great tower gives 
Ludlow so distinguished an air, the church 
where the solemn Councillors of the Marches 
have their pompous tombs, we find the grave 
of Philip Sidney's little sister. '*Heare 



SHORT RUNS IN SHROPSHIRE 9 

lyethe the bodye of Ambrozia Sydney, 
iiijth doughter of the Right Honourable 
Syr Henrye Sydney . . . and the Ladye 
Mary his wyef." It is sometimes said, too, 
that Prince Arthur, Henry VII. 's young son, 
is buried here, but this is not the ease. 
There is a cenotaph that was, perhaps 
raised in his memory, but his body was 
taken to Worcester Cathedral. 

These are the gentler memories of Ludlow. 
Of the fiercer kind there is no lack, from 
the old fighting days of the de Lacy who 
built the keep, and the de Dinan who built 
the round chapel, down through centuries 
of siege and battle to the time of the Civil 
War, when the King's flag flew here longer 
than on any other castle of Shropshire. 

Ludlow might well be chosen as a centre 
for motor drives in Herefordshire, Shrop- 
shire, and Worcestershire. But for the 
moment we are concerned with Shropshire 
only, and the centre of that county, in 
every sense, is Shrewsbury ; and so, sad 
though it is to leave Ludlow so soon, we 
must glide away down the steep pitch 
beyond the door of the "Feathers," past 



10 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

the railway station, past the racecourse, 
and over the twenty-nine miles of excellent 
and level road that lie between Ludlow and 
Shrewsbury. 

The first village on this road, Bromfield, is 
very typical of the villages of Shropshire at 
their best. The black-and-white cottages 
seem to have been set in their places with 
an eye to pictorial effect ; the stream and 
bridge are exactly in the right spot ; and 
to complete the picture, a beautiful old 
gatehouse stands a little way back from 
the road. It is built half of stone, half of 
timber and plaster, and was once the gate- 
way of a Benedictine Priory which is men- 
tioned in Domesday Book as being of some 
importance. It leads now to the church, 
and is one of those unexpected touches of 
beauty and interest that may meet one's 
eye at any turn of a Shropshire road. 

At Onibury we cross the line and the 
river Onny, and about a mile and a half 
further on we should begin to look for 
Stokesay Castle on the left. As it is a 
little way from the main road, and partly 
hidden by trees, it is easy to miss it when 




Photu ?>(/] 



STOKE SAY CASTLE. 



[W. I). Hay don. 



SHORT RUNS IN SHROPSHIRE 11 

travelling at a good pace; but it is perhaps 
the most attractive ruin in Shropshire from 
an artist's point of view, and should on no 
account be neglected. It is really a fortified 
house rather than a castle, and the mingling 
of the warlike with the domestic gives it a 
peculiar charm. The northern end, with 
its irregular roof and overhanging upper 
storey, the "Solar Room," with its mag- 
nificent carved chimney-piece, and even the 
timbered gateway, are all merely suggestive 
of a dwelling-house ; and it is only when we 
turn to the curious polygonal tower that 
we remember how in the old days an 
Englishman's house was either very lite- 
rally his castle or was likely to become 
some other Englishman's house at an early 
date. As far as I know, however, the only 
time that Stokesay had to make any use 
of its defences was when it was garrisoned 
for the King during the Civil War, and on 
that occasion it seems to have yielded 
without much ado. 

It is by very pleasant ways that this 
road is leading us — between wooded hills 
and over quiet streams. The valley narrows 



12 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

and is at its prettiest near Marshbrook and 
Little Stretton ; then the pointed hill of 
Caradoc became conspicuous, and beyond 
it the famous Wrekin appears — famous not 
for its beauty, but because, being in the 
centre of the county, it can be seen by 
nearly every one in Shropshire, and so has 
gathered round it the sentiment of all 
Salopian hearts. " To friends all round the 
Wrekin ! " is the famous Shropshire toast, 
and there, far away to the right, is the 
isolated rounded hill that means so much 
to those born within sight of it. At 
Stretton we leave the hills and wooded 
valleys behind us, and pass through a few 
miles of rather dull country. It is at the 
village of Bayston Hill that we first see, 
dimly blue against a background of hills, 
the slender spires — almost unrivalled in 
beauty — of that fair town which long ago 
the Welsh named Y Mwythig, the Delight. 

The history of Shrewsbury is stirring, and 
very, very long. When England was still 
in the making she stood there on her hill, 
looking down at the encircling river that 
has defended her for so many centuries. 



SHORT RUNS IN SHROPSHIRE 13 

Nearly every street is connected in some 
way with history ; every second house is 
haunted by some great name. Many large 
and solemn books have been written about 
Shrewsbury, and not one of them is dull. 
Even in these few hundred yards between 
the river and our hotel how many memories 
there are ! As we turn on to the English 
Bridge to cross the Severn we should 
glance backwards to the right at the red 
tower and great west window of the Abbey 
founded by the Conqueror's kinsman, Roger 
de Montgomery, a man of mark ; and then, 
having crossed the steep rise and fall of the 
bridge, we climb into the heart of the town 
by the hill called the Wyle Cop. It was 
up this steep hill that, not so very long ago, 
the London coach used to dash, turning 
into the yard of the Lion Hotel at a 
pace that is still spoken of with awe and 
admiration. If we were to do the like we 
should probably have to pay five pounds 
and costs, so we will ascend the Cop in a 
way more conducive to dreaming of the 
past: of Harry Tudor on his way to "trye 
hys right" at Bosworth, with the welcom- 



14 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

ing citizens strewing flowers before him; 
of the more stately procession that wound 
up the hill when he came back as Henry VII. 
with his Queen and young Prince Arthur ; 
of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and his 
stepson Essex, after their reception by 
bailiffs and aldermen, " and other to the 
number of xxiiij scarlet gowns, with the 
scollars of the freescoole," listening wearily 
"at the upper end of the Wylde Coppe," 
to three orations ! Henry Tudor, when he 
reached the Wyle Cop, was glad to take 
shelter for the night in that picturesque 
little black-and-white house with the over- 
hanging top storey and the tiled roof — it 
is on the left, rather more than half-way 
up the hill — for he had not won his way 
into the town without difficulty. '' The 
gates weare shutt against him and the port- 
culleys lett downe," and a bailiff of the 
town — " a stout, wise gentleman," we are 
told — vowed that Henry should only enter 
over his prostrate body. So, when Henry 
had made it clear that he did not mean to 
hurt the town, "nor none therein," the 
only way for the stout, wise gentleman to 



SHORT RUNS IN SHROPSHIRE 15 

keep his word was by lying down on the 
ground and allowing his future king to 
step over him. Thus did Henry of Rich- 
mond come in triumph to the little house 
on the Wyle. 

If we are going to the " Raven/ or the 
" Crown," as is probable, we turn to the right 
near the top of the hill, and pass the beau- 
tiful old timbered house — which stands on 
the right hand, a little back from the street 
— where Princess Mary stayed on her way 
to Ludlow after she had been created 
Prince of Wales ; and a little further up, 
on the left, is the many-gabled house where 
Prince Rupert lived for a time when he was 
here with Charles I. On each side of us 
rises one of the slender spires that are the 
pride of Shrewsbury. St. Alkmund's Church, 
on the left, was founded by Alfred's daugh- 
ter Ethelfleda, known as the Lady of the 
Mercians ; a lady, it would seem, of some 
force. "A woman of an enlarged soul," 
William of Malmesbury calls her; and adds: 
" This spirited heroine assisted her brother 
greatly with her advice, and was of equal 
service in building cities." It is gravely 



16 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

recorded in a serious chronicle that in 1533 
"the. dyvyll apearyd in Saint Alkmond's 
Churche there when the preest was at 
highe masse with greate tempest and dark- 
nes, so that as he passyd through the 
churche he mountyd up the steeple in the 
sayde churche, teringe the wyer of the 
sayde clocke, and put the prynt of hys 
clawes uppon the iiijth bell." This steeple 
on our left was the very scene of this feat ; 
but the body of the church was rebuilt in 
the eighteenth century. Another old Shrews- 
bury church, St. Chad's, had fallen down, 
and the congregation of Saint Alkmund's 
feared a repetition of the disaster. In the 
case of St. Alkmund's, however, it was the 
rebuilding that was the disaster. 

The story of St. Mary's lovely spire, on 
our right, is full of incident. In 1572 it was 
"blown aside by wind"; in 1594 "there fell 
such a monstrous dry wind, and so extreme 
fierce . . . that the like was never seen of 
those that be living . . . the force whereof 
removed the upper part of St. Mary's 
steeple out of his place towards the south 
about five inches"; in 1662 the steeple was 



SHORT RUNS IN SHROPSHIRE 17 

"taken down six yards from the top"; in 
1690 it was damaged by an earthquake ; in 
1754 it was "shattered by a high wind"; 
in 1756 the newly-built part was again 
" blown aside " ; in 1818 the upper part 
" became loose " ; and during a terrific storm 
in 1894 fifty feet of its masonry fell through 
the roof of the nave shortly after the 
evening service. Most wonderfully this last 
disaster did no damage to the stained glass, 
which is St. Mary's great glory and has 
itself had an eventful existence ; for some 
of it was in old St. Chad's when it fell, 
and much of it, long ago, filled the windows 
of religious houses in Germany. 

The slender columns and pointed arches 
of this lovely church have rung to the 
voice of Charles I., who once proclaimed 
his good intentions within these walls, and 
knelt, harassed and nearly uncrowned, before 
this altar. It was in St. Mary's, too, that 
James II. touched for the King's Evil. 

Just beyond the church is the Crown 
Hotel, and whether we stay there or at the 
"Raven," a hundred yards away, we shall 
hear the bells of St. Mary's, once described 

3 



18 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

as " the comfortables t ring of bells in all 
the town," and the chiming clock that was 
the bequest of Fanny Barney's Uncle James, 
and the curfew, which still rings every 
night at nine. And after the curfew we 
shall hear the number of the day of the 
month rung out — a relic of the times before 
cheap almanacs existed. 

There is no doubt that the most satisfac- 
tory way of seeing Shropshire is to spend 
a few nights in Shrewsbury, and make it 
the basis of operations ; for Shrewsbury lies 
exactly in the centre of the county, and is 
the meeting-point of a particularly large 
number of good roads. The old town itself, 
too, does not deserve to be hurried through. 
The longer one stays in it the more one 
feels the charm of its gentle old age. 

The Old School Buildings are within a 
stone's-throw of us, with all their memories 
of the wise and great: memories that are, 
as a matter of fact, older than themselves ; 
for though Charles Darwin was educated 
within these very walls, it was in an older 
building of wood, standing on the same spot, 
that Philip Sidney was a schoolboy — gentle 



SHORT RUNS IN SHROPSHIRE 19 

and grave, and as much loved then as he was 
destined to be all his life, and is still. It 
was while he was here that his father wrote 
him a ** very godly letter . . . most necessarie 
for all yoong gentlemen to be carried in 
memorie," which his mother, who added a 
postscript "in the skirts of my Lord Presi- 
dent's letter," considered to be so full of 
** excellent counsailes," that she begged Philip 
to "fayle not continually once in foure or 
five dales to reade them over." The counsels 
were certainly excellent. "Be humble and 
obedient to your master," says Sir Henry, 
**. . . be courteous of gesture. . . . Give your- 
self to be merie . . . but let your mirth be 
ever void of all scurrillitie and biting words 
to any man. . . . Above all things, tell no 
untruth, no not in trifles " ; and he ends 
quaintly: "Well, my little Philip, this is 
enough for me, and I feare too much for 
you." If my Lord President had not also 
been my Lord Deputy of Ireland one might 
have loved him nearly as much as his son. 

Neither he nor Philip ever saw the timbered 
gatehouse that stands opposite to the Old 
School Buildings, but in the red Council 



20 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

House to which it leads, Sir Henry always 
stayed when he made official visits to Shrews- 
bury. There were fine doings on these 
occasions ; banquets and processions, with 
" knightly robes most valiant," and many 
scarlet gowns ; masquerades, too, by the boys 
of the school, who appeared now as soldiers, 
now as nymphs, and made orations in both 
characters. Later on the same red house 
sheltered Charles I., when he came here to 
collect men and money. Half the plate in 
the county disappeared into his mint, which 
was set up, some say, in a little tottering 
house that may still be seen in an alley on 
Pride Hill — a fragment of green and weather- 
worn stone that is one of the most picturesque 
things in Shrewsbury. Some of the money 
that Charles " borrowed " on this occasion 
was well spent in repairing the Castle, which 
is quite near the Council House. The Castle 
is now a private dwelling, and one cannot 
walk about the grounds without permission ; 
but the oldest part of it is the great entrance - 
gate, which all may see ; the gate that was 
built by Roger de Montgomery and attacked 
by Stephen ; the gate through which Henry IV. 



SHORT RUNS IN SHROPSHIRE 21 

rode out to the famous Battle of Shrewsbury. 
The Castle itself, as it now stands, was 
probably mostly built by Edward I. ; but it 
suffered so much through the centuries from 
siege, and treachery, and time, that many 
repairs were necessary to secure it a peaceful 
old age as a dwelling-house. Every motorist 
who is properly grateful to his benefactors, 
will be interested to know that it was the 
engineer Telford who carried out these 
repairs. He actually lived in the Castle for 
a time, I believe, and he certainly built the 
" Laura " tower, which stands on the founda- 
tions of the old watch-tower. Telford was 
in Shrewsbury when the tower of Old St. 
Chad's showed signs of collapsing, and, on 
his advice being asked, said the church 
should be repaired without delay. The 
Parish Yestry begged him to meet them in 
St. Chad's to discuss the matter, and demurred 
so long at the expense that at last Telford 
walked out of the church, saying grimly that 
he would rather talk the matter over in some 
place where there was less danger of the 
roof falling on his head. Two or three days 
later it fell. 



22 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

Not far from the fragments of this ruined 
church is the High Street, where are some 
of the oldest and prettiest houses in the 
town ; and hard by is the Tudor market- 
place, with its statue of Richard, Duke of 
York. The claims of the Unitarian chapel 
in the same street are not based on beauty, 
but on the fact that Coleridge's voice once 
rose in it " like a steam of rich distilled 
perfumes," according to William Hazlitt, who 
had walked ten miles to hear Coleridge 
preach here, and was as much delighted, he 
says, "as if he had heard the music of the 
spheres." Charles Darwin attended the 
services of this chapel as a boy, but was 
baptized in New St. Chad's, the eighteenth- 
century church near the Quarry, within 
whose classical walls Dr. Johnson once wor- 
shipped. The Doctor's famous rolling walk, 
too, of which we have all heard so much, 
was once seen under the splendid limes of 
the Quarry. 

As we entered Shrewsbury by the English 
Bridge we caught a glimpse of the Abbey 
behind us. Leaving the town by the London 
Road, on our way to see something of the 




Photo by] 



y 1). Haydon, 



OLD STREET IN SHREWSBURY. 



SHORT RUNS IN SHROPSHIRE 23 

eastern side of the county, we shall pass 
close by the old red building that was partly 
spared when Roger de Montgomery's great 
monastery was dissolved. It will be worth 
while to stop the engine for a moment, and 
to look at the massive Norman piers of the 
nave, the fine altar-tombs, and the fragment 
of St. Winifred's shrine. The founder him- 
self was buried here, after a long life of 
storm and stress, and three days in a monk's 
habit; but the knightly figure that has been 
thought to represent him is said by the best 
authorities to be of a later date than his. 
This Roger is very prominent in Shropshire 
history, and is, indeed, not unknown in that 
of England, for he figured in the Battle of 
Hastings, and wherever he figured he made 
himself felt. We hear many conflicting 
things of his character, but from them all 
we gather that he was a typical man of his 
day, spending his time chiefly in acquiring 
his neighbour's goods, and his leisure moments 
in building abbeys. Having built this Abbey 
of Shrewsbury he was careful to see that 
other people enriched it, and it soon became 
one of the most important in England. Its 



24 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

actual buildings covered ten acres : yet now 
all of it that we can see is this restored 
church, and, across the road, a relic of a 
later date. There, in the din and dust of a 
coal-yard, stands the graceful stone pulpit 
that was once in the refectory wall. From 
under its delicately carved canopy a lay 
brother read pious works aloud to the monks 
while they ate. 

As we drive up the Abbey Foregate, be- 
tween the trees and old houses, the memory 
of the Benedictines is with us still ; for it 
was down this road that the monks, with 
their abbot at their head, came once in 
solemn procession with the bones of St. Wini- 
fred. These, by the combined use of a smooth 
tongue and a stout spade, they had brought 
triumphantly away from the churchyard of 
a Welsh village, knowing full well that no 
wealth of lands and churches enriched a 
monastery so surely as a handful of saintly 
dust. 

At the top of the Foregate is the column 
on which Lord Hill stands above a list of 
his battles. Here we keep to the London 
Road, and are soon in the open country. 



SHORT RUNS IN SHROPSHIRE 25 

We are bound for Boscobel, but as there is 
a good deal to be seen on the way, a round 
of forty-three miles is not as short as it 
seems. Between Shrewsbury and Atcham the 
scenery is not particularly interesting, but 
the road is level and the surface good, so 
we have our compensations. From the 
picturesque bridge at Atcham there is a 
lovely view of distant Caradoc, with the 
Severn in the foreground, and on the river 
bank the old church that is said to have 
been largely built, like that at Wroxeter, of 
the stones from the Roman city of Uriconium. 
We are very near that city now. If we take 
the first turn to the right after leaving 
Atcham, we shall soon be actually passing over 
the ashes of '* the White Town in the Wood- 
land," as it was called by the Welsh poet who 
sang of its tragic end ; and a moment later 
we shall see, near the roadside, a fragment of 
the wall of its basilica. By asking for the 
key at a cottage close at hand, and by pay- 
ing sixpence, we may see also the remains 
of its public baths, and a piece of tesselated 
pavement that might have been laid down 
yesterday. Many relics of this town that 



26 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

was built by the Romans, inhabited by the 
British, and burnt by the Saxons, have been 
found within the limits of the hundred and 
seventy acres that it once covered : skeletons 
of men and women crouching where they 
had vainly sought safety in the hypocausts 
of the burning baths ; coins scattered by 
fugitives ; pathetic trifles of women's dress — 
hairpins, buckles, and a brooch whose pin 
still works. Older than these are the urns 
and tombstones found in the Roman ceme- 
tery; the tombstone of Petronius, who is 
thought to have taken part in the victory 
over Boadicea ; and that of " Placida, aged 
fifty-four, raised by the care of her husband." 
Most of the relics have been moved, for safe 
keeping, to the Museum in Shrewsbury. 

From Uriconium a very pretty road leads 
us to Buildwas. The Severn winds below 
us on the right, and on the hillside to the 
left is the little village of Eaton Constan- 
tine, which Constantine the Norman — who 
also gave his name to the Cotentin in 
France — held in the days of Domesday 
Book at a rental of a pair of white 
gloves, valued at cne penny. Even at this 



SHORT RUNS IN SHROPSHIRE 27 

distance is visible the black-and-white gable 
of the farmhouse that was once the home 
of Richard Baxter, author of "The Saints' 
Everlasting Rest," and an amazing number 
of other books — enough, said Judge Jeffreys, 
" to load a cart." Dr. Johnson, however, 
pronounced them to be " all good." Here, 
we learn, Baxter "passed away his Child- 
hood and Youth, which upon Reflection he, 
according to the Wise Man's Censure, found 
to be vanity." In spite of these austere 
views, however, his childhood was not 
without its wild oats, for we are told 
that he "joyn'd sometimes with other 
Naughty Boys in Robbing his Neighbours' 
Orchards of their Fruit, when he had eno' 
at home . . . and was bewitched with a 
love of Romances and Idle Tales." 

Presently, after passing through the pretty 
village of Leigh ton- under-the-Wrekin, we 
see Buildwas, the Shelter near the Water, 
on the further side of the river. Perhaps 
this is the most striking view of the 
fourteen massive pillars of this roofless 
nave, in which the Cistercians of the 
twelfth century austerely worshipped ; but 



28 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

we can visit the ruins if we wish to do 
so by crossing the bridge that has quite 
recently superseded one built by Telford. 
There is not very much more to be seen 
at close quarters than from here : the 
great charm of Buildwas lies in its effect 
as a whole, in its simplicity and strength, 
and in its position by the river. 

About a mile beyond Buildwas is Iron- 
bridge, named from the first bridge ever 
built in England of iron, which here spans 
the Severn at a height of forty feet, by 
a single arch of a hundred feet in width. 
It was the work of Abraham Darby, the 
third of his name, and was finished in 
1779. A gradient of 1 in 10 takes us 
through Ironbridge, and less than two 
miles further on is Madeley, which appears 
at first sight the very type of all that is 
unromantic, a prey to coal-dust and miners ; 
yet if we turn off the main road to the 
left we shall presently find, hidden in a 
hollow near Madeley Court Station, as 
poetic a spot as we shall see in many 
a day's journey. Perhaps its very con- 
trast to its surroundings adds to its 




Fhoto by} 



D. Haydon. 



BUILDWAS ABBEY. 





M 



SHORT RUNS IN SHROPSHIRE 29 

charm ; perhaps to some it may not seem 
charming at all, but merely a tumble-down, 
ill-kept house. But to others this little 
nook, with the weather-stained, crumbling 
walls and tiled gables of the Court House, 
the swinging ivy, the still pond, the bul- 
rushes and water-lilies, and the red-and- 
black timbered barn that once sheltered a 
fugitive king, are a " faery land forlorn," 
the very home of glamour and romance. 
Here Charles II. arrived one night, dressed 
in green breeches and a noggen shirt. He 
was tired and hungry, his hands and face 
were smudged with soot, and he answered 
to the name of William Jones. He was 
refreshed in this house, and spent the 
next day in the barn with Richard 
Penderel, one of the five brothers to whom 
he owed his safety. When night fell he 
walked to Boscobel. 

It was hours before he was there, 
whereas we, if we were as much hurried 
as he was, might be there in half an hour 
or so. But though there is nothing to 
keep us at Shifnal we must pause at Tong, 
where there are some especially pretty 



30 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

timbered cottages and a church that is 
really remarkable, for it contains a collec- 
tion of tombs which I should imagine to 
be unequalled in a village church. They 
are those of the Vernon family, and 
among them is that of Dame Margaret 
Stanley, the sister of Dorothy Vernon, of 
Haddon Hall. Charles Dickens said him- 
self that it was of Tong Village he was 
thinking when he wrote the end of " The 
Old Curiosity Shop," and those to whom 
Little Nell appeals may think of her and 
her grandfather in the porch of this 
church. Some of us, however, will take 
more interest in the shot-marks that have 
scarred the northern wall ever since the 
days of the Civil War. 

In a park near the village stands the 
astonishing structure called Tong Castle. 
It was once a real castle of stone ; in the 
sixteenth century Sir Henry Vernon rebuilt 
it of brick; in the eighteenth a new owner 
thought that Moorish cupolas would make 
a pretty finish to it. When, in 1643, it was 
in the possession of the Parliamentarians, it 
was said on that account to be a "great 



SHORT RUNS IN SHROPSHIRE 31 

eye-sore to his Majesty's good subjects who 
pass'd yt road." For other reasons it is 
so still. 

A writer of the seventeenth century 
describes Boscobel as "a very obscure habi- 
tation, situate in a kind of wilderness " ; 
and no doubt it was to this obscurity that 
Charles II. owed his safety. Even to-day it 
is wonderfully isolated, and we reach it by 
a series of rather circuitous by-roads ; but 
we can drive right up to the house, and 
leave our car in a safe enclosure, while we 
walk a hundred yards to the Royal Oak — 
not the original " asylum of the most potent 
prince King Charles II. . . . the oak beloved 
by Jove," * which was mostly made into snuff- 
boxes and other treasures for the loyal — 
but an oak grown from an acorn of that 
" fortunate tree." When Charles reached 
Boscobel at three o'clock in the morning he 
was taken into the big panelled room that 
we shall presently see, and was refreshed 
with bread and cheese and a posset of milk 
and beer. Colonel Carlis, another fugitive 

* Latin inscription on the wall that used to surround the 
tree.— Duke's Version. 



32 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

from Worcester, "pulled off his Majesty's 
shoos, which were full of gravel, and 
stockens which were very wet," and at day- 
break went with him into the wood, where 
they both climbed into the oak — here, 
where we are standing — with a cushion 
for his Majesty to sit on. Here, for a 
great part of the day, the tired King 
slept with his head on Colonel Carlis's 
knee. " He bore all these hardships and 
afflictions with incomparable patience," says 
a contemporary historian. At night he was 
hidden in the house, buried beneath the 
garret floor in a box-like priest's-hole, with 
a load of cheese on the lid. We may 
climb the stairs and see it ; get into it if 
we will — and ask ourselves if, after spend- 
ing a night in it, we should be as light- 
hearted as this man who at any moment 
might lose his life and had already lost 
everything else. In the morning he called 
for a frying-pan and butter, and, having 
first despatched Colonel Carlis with a 
dagger to slaughter a neighbour's sheep, 
he gaily cooked himself some mutton 
collops, while the Colonel, " being but 



SHORT RUNS IN SHROPSHIRE 33 

under-cook (and that honour enough too), 
made the fire and turned the collops in 
the pan." 

From Boscobel we strike due north to 
Ivetsey Bank, where we shall find an inn 
capable of providing a good, if homely, 
luncheon or tea. Thence sixteen miles on 
Watling Street will bring us without a 
pause {unherufen I ) through Wellington to 
the point where we left the main road on 
our outward journey. It is worth while, 
by the way, to avoid the unpleasant bit 
of road through Oakengates by striking 
across to the main road from Shifnal; to 
do which we must take a turn in St. 
George's, where a lamp-post stands out 
prominently. We enter Shrewsbury, as we 
left it, by the London Road. 

A slightly longer run, covering about fifty 
miles altogether, will show us something of 
the northern part of the county on its 
western side. We drive out of the town 
past the station and through the squalid 
suburb of Ditherington, where, for love of 
our springs and of humanity, we must 

4 



34 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

perforce drive slowly, by reason of the 
bumpiness of the surface and the phenomenal 
number of children. Over this ground rode 
Henry IV. and Prince Hal to the Battle 
of Shrewsbury, and there on our right is 
Haughmond Hill, the " busky hill " to which 
Shakespeare refers. Presently there appears 
on the left, a few hundred yards away 
from the road, the church of Battlefield, 
raised, with the exception of the tower, 
quite soon after the battle on the spot 
where the fight raged most fiercely, in 
order that masses might be sung perpetu- 
ally "for the prosperity of the King and 
the souls of the slain." Here Harry Hotspur 
died, and with him thousands of others 
both gentle and simple, for this was a very 
notable fight and many interests were con- 
cerned in it. Beneath the mounds that we 
see on the south side of the church are the 
bones of many of the slain. The King "had 
many marching in his coats," as Hotspur 
puts it in "Henry IV.," and as they were 
killed in mistake for him he saved himself 
by a device more ingenious than kingly. 

There is nothing of special note between 



SHOET RUNS IN SHROPSHIRE 35 

Battlefield and Hawkestone, which is about 
twelve miles from Shrewsbury, and is a 
private park, open to visitors. In the rhodo- 
dendron season it is well worth while to 
leave one's car at the extremely nice hotel 
at the outskirts of the park, and to walk 
about a mile through pretty grounds swarm- 
ing with black rabbits, to see the blaze of 
blossom for which Hawkestone is famous. 
And yet I think they will fare still better 
who choose the time of bluebells. These 
should drive through the park by the public 
road. Beyond the gate, where the stream is 
close to them on the right and woods slope 
to its edge, they will see, bright in the near 
foreground but fading away into the distance 
under the trees in a misty cloud, a soft, 
ethereal veil of grey-blue. Here and there 
the green breaks through, and the flowers 
look like wisps of smoke trailing across the 
grass. This wonderful sheet of mystic blue 
borders the river and the road for some 
way, till the wood ends suddenly, and Hodnet 
Hall comes in sight. 

One really grows a little tired of recording 
the picturesqueness of Shropshire villages. 



36 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

They are nearly all pretty : for the houses, 
when they are not of timber and plaster, 
are often built of the warm red sandstone 
that is the stone of the county and acquires 
such soft, mellow colours in its old age. But 
I sometimes think Hodnet is the prettiest 
village of them all. Half the houses are 
black-and-white ; and near the church gate a 
group of timber gables, with the octagonal 
tower in the background, forms a complete and 
perfectly composed picture. Bishop Reginald 
Heber, the author of "From Greenland's icy 
mountains," was rector of Hodnet for some 
years before he sailed for "India's coral strand." 

From Hodnet we may either drive back to 
Shrewsbury or turn to the left in the middle 
of the village and take a run of about thirty- 
four miles by Market Drayton and Newport, 
two picturesque old towns with a good road 
between them. The scenery in this part of the 
county is pleasing, but not especially striking. 
If we choose this way we shall, as we draw 
near Shrewsbury, pass the ruins of Haugh- 
mond, one of the great Shropshire abbeys. 

Long ago there was a hermitage at the 
foot of this " husky hill " ; before William 



SHORT RUNS IN SHROPSHIRE 37 

FitzAlan's monastery for Austin Canons rose 
here, with the great church that has prac- 
tically disappeared,* and the tall gable with 
the turrets that are so conspicuous to-day, 
and the chapter-house with the beautiful 
doorway. This Abbey was greatly patronised 
by royalty. Stephen gave it a mill, Matilda 
gave it lands "for the remission of her 
sins," Henry II. gave churches, and Henry III. 
more land, and Llewelyn of Wales " a moiety 
of Kenwicke." The list of other benefactions 
is endless : mills and fisheries, churches and 
markets, woods and hogs and herds. Many 
were the "privileges of flesh and fish" 
enjoyed by the canons of Haughmond ; and 
Abbot Nicholas, in Edward III.'s time, de- 
siring to make the most of all these luxuries, 
built a new kitchen for the brethren and 
" appointed them a cook to dress their food." 
It was in 1541 that Henry YIII., as his 
manner was, took possession of Haughmond 
and all its riches, "beyng mynded to take 
the same into his own handes for a better 

* Since these words were written there have been ex- 
tensive excavations at Haughmond, by which important 
disclosures have been made. 



38 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

purpose"; and so the minster, for which he 
had no use, gradually vanished. Nothing is 
left of it but a fragment of wall and a 
doorway. Two tombs that were once within 
the chancel now lie open to the sky on the 
hillside, where their appeal for the prayers 
of the passers-by is of far more pathetic 
force than it ever was under the shelter of 
the Abbey's roof: — 

" Vous Ki Passez Par Ici Priez Pur L'Alme Johan 
Fitz Aleine Ki Git Ici. Deu De Sa Alme 
Eit Merci. A7nen." 

^'Isabel De Mortimer Sa Femme Acost De Li. Deu 
De Lur Alme Eit Merci. Amen." 

From this road near Haughmond we have 
perhaps the loveliest view of distant Shrews- 
bury. The pale hills rim the horizon, the 
river winds in the foreground, and between 
them rise the clear outlines of the two in- 
comparable spires that crown The Delight. 

Another of the Shropshire monasteries that 
must certainly be seen is Wenlock Priory, 
which lies on the way to Bridgnorth. It is 
a fairly level road that leads to it by Cross 
Houses and Cound and pretty Cressage, which 




Fhoiohy [W. n.Hayclon. 

WENLOCK PRIORY, ST. JOHN's CHAPEL. 



SHORT RUNS IN SHROPSHIRE 39 

in Domesday Book is Cristes-ache, or Christ's 
Oak. Christianity was preached here, it is 
said, under an old oak-tree, in days so early 
that when St. Augustine visited the place he 
found it already Christian. Between Harley 
and Wenlock there is a hill which the Con- 
tour Book describes with perfect accuracy as 
"a precipitous hill on which innumerable 
accidents have happened." The accidents, I 
fancy, have mostly happened to horse-drawn 
vehicles and bicycles — especially the latter — 
when descending the hill, for it is a mile 
long and has a turn in the middle. There 
is no reason why it should inconvenience a 
good car, for the average gradient is nothing 
more alarming than 1 in 8, and it is well 
worth climbing for the sake of the wide 
view from the top, just beyond which Much 
Wenlock lies. 

Milburga, Saxon princess and saint, built 
the first religious house at Wenlock, and 
became its abbess, and was finally buried 
within its precincts. William of Malmesbury 
tells us how, long after her death, she en- 
riched the place to which she had given her 
life and all she possessed. " Milburga," he 



40 MOTOE TOURS IN WALES 

says, " reposes at Wenlock . . . but for some 
time after the arrival of the Normans, 
through ignorance of the place of her burial, 
she was neglected. Lately, however, a con- 
vent of Clugniac monks being established 
there, while a new church was erecting, a 
certain boy, running violently along the 
pavement, broke into the hollow of the 
vault, and discovered the body of the virgin, 
when a balsamic odour pervading the whole 
church, she was taken up, and performed so 
many miracles that the people flocked thither 
in great multitudes. Large spreading plains 
could hardly contain the troops of pilgrims, 
while rich and poor came side by side, one 
common faith compelling all." 

The convent of Clugniac monks in question 
was built by that notable man Roger de 
Montgomery, and was the same whose ruins 
speak so plainly to-day of the ornate tastes 
of the monks of Clugny. We saw no arcaded 
walls such as these of the chapter-house, 
nor richly moulded doorways, nor any such 
elaborate ornament at Cistercian Buildwas, 
whose lands marched with the lands of this 
Priory, and whose monks found the Rule of 



SHORT RUNS IN SHROPSHIRE 41 

Clugny too soft, the tastes of Clugny too 
enervating. Go to Wenlock in the spring, 
when its slender columns rise above a sea 
of sw^eet-scented flowers, and its old wall is 
bright with rock-plants — for the Priory stands 
in private grounds and is cared for like 
a garden. It is the third religious house 
that has stood on this spot, for between the 
days of Milburga, the royal saint, and those 
of Roger and his Clugniacs, there was 
another monastery founded here by Leofric 
of Mercia and his wife Godiva, a well-loved 
woman whom we are glad to connect with 
this beautiful spot. The picturesque old 
Prior's Lodge is inhabited, and it is only on 
Tuesdays and Fridays that the world at large 
is admitted to the ruins. Perhaps nothing 
recalls to one so vividly the daily life of 
the monks in this place as the long causeway 
that stretches across the field near the Priory 
garden. It was here that the brothers took 
their daily exercise, raised above the sur- 
rounding marsh — a long procession of dark 
figures, walking slowly to and fro — and 
among them, unsuspected, that interesting 
swashbuckler of whom we long to hear more, 



42 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

that man of extremes whose strange career 
is all summed up for us in one short, preg- 
nant sentence. "In 1283," we learn, "a 
brother of Wenlac became a captain of 
banditti." We hear no more of him, alas ! 
except that he was hanged. 

The road to Bridgnorth is a continuation 
of the one by which we entered the town, 
so we must drive back, past the beautiful 
old Guildhall and market-place, up the street 
to the Gaskell Arms, where we may have 
luncheon if, as may well occur to motorists, 
we are too hungry to wait till we reach 
the more imposing " Crown " at Bridgnorth. 
At the Gaskell Arms we turn sharply to 
the left, and thence eight or nine miles of 
good road, with several steep hills, will bring 
us to Bridgnorth. 

Ever since the Danes built a fort here this 
town, nearly as consistently as Shrewsbury 
and Ludlow, has concerned itself with 
history. It has been visited by half the 
kings of England. Henry I. besieged it ; 
Henry II. defended it ; John and Edward I. 
stayed in it ; Edward II. took refuge in it ; 
Henry IV. gathered his army here on his 



SHORT RUNS IN SHROPSHIRE 43 

way to the Battle of Shrewsbury ; Charles I. 
was besieged here by Cromwell, who nar- 
rowly escaped death before the walls. The 
Castle, of course, was the centre of interest 
on all these occasions — the Castle that was 
built so hurriedly by Robert de Belesme, 
Roger de Montgomery's son, and is now so 
conspicuous on account of its leaning tower. 
Round its ruins is a path that must be 
practically the same as that which Charles I. 
declared to be as pleasant a walk as any in 
his kingdom. Robert de Belesme, who has 
been described with apparent justice as "an 
implacable villain," also founded the church 
of St. Mary Magdalene, but the present 
building was designed by Telford. Another 
interesting church is St. Leonard's, where in 
the churchyard the Roundheads once beat 
the Royalists in a skirmish, and where 
Richard Baxter was a curate. He lived in 
the little black-and-white cottage close at 
hand, and seems to have had a poor 
opinion of his flock. " He found the people 
here generally ignorant and dead-hearted," 
he says, '* . . . so that though by his first 
Labours among them he was Instrumental 



44 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

in the Conversion of several Persons, and 
was generally Applauded, yet . . . Tippling 
and 111 Company rendred his Preaching 
ineffectual." If his preaching was ineffec- 
tual it at all events began early, for "when 
he was a little Boy in Coats, if he heard 
other Children in Play speak Profane Words 
he would reprove them, ^o the wonder of 
those that heard him." At this time — 
when he was a little Boy in Coats — he lived 
at Rowton in this county ; it was not till 
he was ten years old that he moved to 
Eaton Constantine and indulged in dark 
deeds in his neighbours' orchards. 

An extremely steep dip with an awk- 
ward corner in the middle of it will take us 
to the birthplace of another famous divine, 
Bishop Percy, best known in connection 
with "Percy's Reliques." The house, which 
stands in the Cartway, may be approached 
quite comfortably from below, and is worth 
seeing for its own sake, being a good 
example of black-and-white work. 

Our best way home from here is by 
Ironbridge and Buildwas, on the road by 
which we drove to Boscobel. Between 



SHORT RUNS IN SHROPSHIRE 45 

Bridgnorth and Ironbridge some of the 
country is pretty, and at Broseley especially 
it must have been lovely in its natural 
state, before it was ruined by the potteries. 
We cross the river by Abraham Darby's 
iron bridge. 

A run of forty-seven miles or so, by 
Wem, Whitchurch, and Ellesmere, v^rill show 
us a good deal of the north-west part of 
the county, and if, when we reach Whit- 
church, we choose to lengthen the distance 
to fifty-four miles by slipping over the 
Welsh border to Overton and Erbistock, we 
shall not regret it. 

We leave Shrewsbury by the road that 
branches to the left immediately opposite 
to the station. Almost at once, at the 
point where the road touches the Severn, 
we pass a long, low house of timber and 
plaster on our right. It was from this 
house that Admiral Benbow ran away to 
sea. He was living here as an apprentice, 
to his father or another, and, since it was 
the custom to entrust the house-key to the 
care of the apprentice, he had, fortunately 



46 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

for himself and England, special facilities 
for making his escape. He hid the key in 
the tree that is marked with a ring of 
whitewash, and stands between the house 
and the railings ; and there to this day it 
hangs. 

Between Shrewsbury and Whitchurch 
there is nothing of particular interest 
except the old farmhouse called Albright 
Hussey, which stands in a field on the 
right about three miles out of Shrewsbury. 
It is a pretty old moated house, partly 
black-and-white ; but its greatest beauty is 
within, where there is as charming a room 
as one need wish to see, a room to make a 
housewife weep tears of covetousness — low, 
oblong, oak-panelled to the ceiling, with 
seats in the muUioned windows and a carved 
fireplace. The house is inhabited, but I 
believe there is never any difficulty in 
obtaining leave to see it. Its sixteenth- 
century walls were once threatened by a 
party of Parliamentarian horse. There were 
only eight men to defend the place, but 
their leader was a crafty man, and shouted 
his orders aloud within hearing of the 



SHORT RUNS IN SHROPSHIRE 47 

enemy. " Let ten men stay here, and ten 
go there, and twenty stay with me ! " he 
cried ; and the attacking force, dismayed 
by the number of mythical defenders, rode 
away and left the stone and timber, the 
mullioned windows and oaken wainscotes, 
to be a joy to us to-day. 

In Wem, however, through which we 
presently pass, it was the "Parliament 
men " who were in the ascendent. The 
place acted a prominent part in the Civil 
War, and has a history many centuries long, 
but on the surface is commonplace enough. 
In the List of the Owners of the Manor of 
Wem the twenty-fourth name is the grim 
one of "Sir George Jeffreys, Knight and 
Baronet, and Lord Chief Justice of the 
King's Bench, created in 1685 a peer of 
England by the style and title of Baron 
Jeffreys of Wem." 

At Whitchurch we must draw up at the 
door of St. Alkmund's Church ; not because 
it is old or beautiful, for the original church 
fell down in 1711 and was entirely rebuilt; 
nor because Dean Swift subscribed to the 
rebuilding of it ; but because it contains the 



48 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

dust of the great Talbot, first Earl of 
Shrewsbury, "the scourge of France." His 
valiant heart lies beneath the white stone 
in the porch, where careless thousands 
have trodden it underfoot. It was found 
there in an urn when the church was 
rebuilt, and with it were some figures of 
Christ and the Virgin Mary from Talbot's 
rosary. His bones are in the chancel, 
whither, about fifty years after his death, 
they were brought from the battlefield of 
Chastillon, where a little chapel had been 
raised on the spot where he fell.* His 
efO-gy lies on a tomb that is an exact 
copy of the original one. While this 
restoration was in progress the bones of 
the great soldier were shown to the 
public, with the skull cleft by the axe that 
killed him. "This is that terrible Talbot," 
says Thomas Fuller, "so famous for his 
sword . . . which constantly conquered 
where it came, insomuch that the bare 
fame of his approach frighted the French 
from the siege of Bordeaux. Being 

* Transactions of the Archaeological Society of Shrop- 
shire. 



SHORT RUNS IN SHROPSHIRE 49 

victorious for twenty-four years together, 
success failed him at last. . . . Hence- 
forward we may say * Good-night to the 
English in France/ whose victories were 
buried with the body of this earl." 

From Whitchurch we drive about fourteen 
miles in a westerly direction to Overton 
Bridge, by Hanmer and Overton village, a 
pretty little place with a churchyard sur- 
rounded by yew-trees. Having crossed the 
bridge, which is about two miles beyond 
the village, we turn to the left at right 
angles and approach Erbistock by a road 
whose greatest recommendation to inveterate 
lovers of speed will be that it is short. After 
one experience, however, most of us will 
agree, I think, that this by-road needs no 
recommendation but the fact that it leads 
to Erbistock. A tiny church and a tiny inn 
at the brim of the Dee — that is all that 
there is at Erbistock. But it is all enclosed 
in trees, and the trees dip into the river, 
and the river is rather big and gentle and 
gurgles sweetly at one's feet, and the woods 
on the other side are tangled and mysterious 
and full of fairies. One may have one's 

5 



50 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

tea close beside the water, or one may cross 
the river in a ferry, and soon be quite alone 
in the woods. There is no need to hurry, 
for when we leave Erbistock we need not 
stop again till we reach Shrewsbury. 

For EUesmere, *'wher was a castelle," 
says Leland, "and very fair polis yet be," 
has now nothing left of its castle but the 
memory of it, and the fair pools may be 
seen as we pass. More than once EUesmere 
was given as a dowry to the daughters of 
English kings, on their marriage with Cymric 
princes ; for as the rulers of the two countries 
were sure to fall out soon after the wedding 
the gift was quickly taken back by the donor, 
and so was ready for the next bride. Thus, 
though Henry II. gave it to his sister Emma, 
there was nothing to prevent King John 
from giving it to his daughter Joan, twenty- 
seven years later, when she married Llewelyn 
the Great. 

I think it must have been beside the lake, 
where on the level ground there would be 
room for the dramatic scene, that Rupert, 
halting here at EUesmere, made his prisoners 
cast lots upon the drum to decide which of 



SHORT RUNS IN SHROPSHIRE 51 

them should die. Thirteen were doomed; 
but at the last moment one of them was 
saved by Sir Vincent Corbet, who as he rode 
past interceded for the man, who had been 
a servant in his family. The rest were 
hanged there and then. Yet it is not they 
who haunt the rushy banks of the mere ; 
but the White Lady of Oteley. Long ago, 
it is said, she robbed and ruined a monastery, 
and built herself a home here with the 
spoils — a home that she has never left since 
then, except to walk by night along the 
margin of the water. She was not even 
allowed to move to the new house when 
it was built about a hundred years ago, 
for a fragment of the old one was left 
standing in the park on purpose for her 
accommodation. The new house faces us 
very conspicuously as we drive close beside 
the water on the opposite side of the mere, 
and go on our way to Shrewsbury, which is 
about sixteen miles away. 

In the south-west, which is the hilliest, 
and therefore the prettiest, part of Shrop- 
shire, there is a variety of little runs, which 



62 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

may be lengthened or shortened according 
to circumstances and tastes. A pretty round 
of about fifty miles is by Chirbury and 
Bishop's Castle, whence either of two lovely 
roads will bring us back to Shrewsbury. 
Nineteen miles of nearly level road lead to 
Chirbury through several villages — Westbury, 
Worthen, Marton, and others — all of which 
are fairly picturesque, but with nothing very 
noteworthy about them. Just before Marton 
is reached there is an exceedingly sharp 
turn, which should be borne in mind. At 
Chirbury our road turns to the left in the 
middle of the village. 

The name of this obscure little place has 
been known to the world for some centuries 
in connection with that strange person Lord 
Herbert of Chirbury, half ruffler, half 
scholar, who in a house only a few miles 
from here, across the Welsh border, wrote 
the famous autobiography that Horace 
Walpole called "perhaps the most extraor- 
dinary account that was ever given seri- 
ously by a wise man of himself." His home 
for the greater part of his life, when he 
was not seeking adventures and duels in 



SHORT RUNS IN SHROPSHIRE 53 

France or London, was in Montgomery 
Castle, whose ruins we may see by driving 
four miles further. Nothing but a fragment 
is left of it now, but when the Herberts 
lived there it must have been a fine sight 
on its wild crag; a more fitting home for 
Edward the soldier than for his gentler and 
still more famous brother George. Chirbury 
itself had a castle and a priory once ; but 
of the castle, which was built by the ever 
active Ethelfleda, nothing remains but the 
site ; and of the monastery there are only 
fragments left, for the present church, 
ancient as it is, was not vised by the monks, 
but was then, as now, the parish church.* 
It has seen strange doings. It is hard to 
realise, when the bells ring in this lonely 
little village, and the quiet country folk 
take their seats for the morning service, 
that here within these very walls the con- 
gregation of Chirbury was once electrified 
by the clashing of armour and the clatter 
of horses' hoofs in the aisle. It was during 
the Civil War, and Mr. Edward Lewis, "a 
very goodly man, did preach twice a day " ; 
-'•' Transactions of the Archaeological Society of Shropshire. 



54 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

a rash thing for a Puritan to do when 
Captain Corbet was no further off than 
Caus Castle. A party of Royalist horse " rode 
into the church to the great fright and 
amazement of the people ; and with their 
pistols charged and cocked went up into 
the pulpit and pulled down Mr. Lewis, 
pulling and tugging him in a most un- 
worthy manner . . . and so left the people 
without their pastor because they would 
not be content with one sermon a day." 

It was this same Edward Lewis who 
brought to Chirbury the chained library 
that almost certainly belonged to George 
Herbert ; for Isaac Walton tells us of " a 
choice library which Mr. Herbert had 
fastened with chains in a fit room in 
Montgomery Castle." This choice library 
contains books dating from 1530 to 1684, 
and among them is a black-letter folio copy 
of Chaucer. They are kept in the vicarage, 
and I believe may be seen by any one. 

Turning to the left in Chirbury we soon 
pass Marrington Hall, or Havodwen, the 
White Summer-house, as the Welsh call it ; 
a very fine example of sixteenth-century 



SHOET RUNS IN SHROPSHIRE 55 

black-and-white work. The lovely little 
valley beyond it is Harrington Dingle, and 
a mile or two further on is Churchstoke. It 
is in this pretty part of Shropshire that 
the uses of the motor-car are especially 
noticeable, for railway stations are few and 
distant from each other, and the hilliness of 
the country is not encouraging to bicyclists. 
Of Bishop's Castle there is little to be said, 
for pretty as the country is all round it, the 
town itself is unattractive, and the castle 
is no more. But all the ways back to 
Shrewsbury from here are lovely. We may 
join the Stretton road, which we already 
know, at Marshbrook, and so see one of the 
most charming little bits of wooded country 
in Shropshire ; or we may follow the hilly 
road through the wild scenery near Rat- 
linghope, down Cothercott Hill, and through 
Longden and Hookagate. Cothercott Hill 
is very steep and has a bad surface, but 
it is only for a short way that the gra- 
dient is really severe, and the view from 
the top is one of the wildest in the country. 
Personally, however, I should recommend 
the third way back to Shrewsbury — over 



56 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

the moor to the Roman Gravels, and down 
through the woods of the winding Hope 
Valley to Minsterley. 

As there is nothing in the whole of this 
little run to delay us, we may lengthen it, 
if our car is good on hills and we are of 
an enterprising temperament, by going on 
from Bishop's Castle to Clun, or even to 
Knighton, and round by Lientwardine to 
join the Ludlow road. This is a beautiful 
bit of country, and full of interest. Le- 
land tells us of the " faire forest of Clun." 
" Cumming from Bisshop's Castelle to Clunne 
lordshippe," he says, "cummeth doune a 
greate woode grouing on a hille." Much of 
this great wood is gone now, but there is 
still enough to make the country very 
*' faire," and to compensate a motorist for 
the climbing of a long hill. Suddenly, as 
we round a corner, Clun comes into sight 
between two hills, with the stern tower of 
its castle standing conspicuously above the 
river. " Clunne Castell," says Leland, " long- 
ynge to the Erie of Arundel, sumewhat 
minus. It hath bene bothe stronge and 
well builded." It is more than somewhat 



SHORT RUNS IN SHROPSHIRE 57 

ruinous now, which is hardly surprising 
when one considers all it has gone through 
at the hands of Welshmen and Round 
heads since it was built in Stephen's reign. 
There is a story that the stones of which 
it is made were passed from hand to hand 
by a chain of men, from the quarry, a mile 
away, to the river-bank where the castle 
stands ; but be that as it may, these crumb- 
ling stones, with their soft tints of grey 
and yellow, embody enough romance to 
satisfy us, I think, seeing that they are 
connected with all the greatest names of 
Wales. They have been stormed and burnt 
by Rhys of the south ; they have been 
attacked in vain by great Llewelyn of the 
north ; they have been overcome by Owen 
Glyndwr. They are connected with modern 
romance, too, for it is supposed that the 
"Garde Dolareuse," in the "Betrothed," 
represents the Castle of Clun, and the 
Buffalo Inn claims to have sheltered Sir 
Walter Scott while he was writing part of 
the book. 

Everything is old at Clun : the church ; the 
fine old bridge, of whose building there is 



58 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

no record ; and the " Hospital of the Holy 
and Undivided Trinity at Clunn," which was 
founded by the Duke of Norfolk in 1614 for 
distressed tradesmen, who were each to 
receive yearly " a gown ready-made of 
strong cloth or kersey, of a sad colour." 

The road between Clun and Knighton is 
not one to be undertaken lightly by small 
cars of uncertain hill-climbing powers, for it 
is mostly composed of long and precipitous 
hills, with gradients varying from 1 in 8 
to 1 in 10 ; but the surface is good, and 
though the scenery is not particularly in- 
teresting at first, it becomes really lovely as 
we draw near Knighton, which lies in a 
valley, surrounded by wooded hills. Here 
we turn to the left, and by way of compen- 
sation the road from Knighton to Leintwar- 
dine is particularly level, along a narrow 
valley between green hills that belong to 
Shropshire on the left and to Herefordshire 
on the right. As the valley widens out 
into open country we reach Brampton Brian, 
associated for ever with the name of Bril- 
liana. Lady Harley. That gallant-hearted 
lady was alone in her husband's castle of 



SHORT RUNS IN SHROPSHIRE 59 

Brampton when it was threatened by the 
forces of Charles I., for the Harleys were 
" Parliament men." " I acknowleg," she 
writes, "I doe not thinke meself safe 
wheare I am." Safe she certainly was not, 
but she thanked God that she was " not 
afraide " ; and when the Royalists bade her 
surrender she simply answered, " I must 
endeavour to keep what is mine as well as 
I can, in which I have the law of nature, of 
reason, and of the law on my side, and you 
none to take it from me." The siege lasted 
some weeks, and Lady Harley, always deli- 
cate, suffered greatly ; but when pressed to 
yield said "she would rather choose an 
honourable death." She died ; but this first 
siege was raised before her "heavenly and 
happy end," and so she never knew that the 
castle was besieged again, was surrendered, 
and burnt to the ground.* 

A few miles further on is Leintwardine, 
which I believe to be full of antiquarian 
interest, and know to be picturesque as an 
artist's dream ; and here, if we care to face 
a narrow byway with a rough surface, we 
* Gentleman^s Magazine, August, 1906. 



60 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

may leave the main road and take the 
more direct route to Craven Arms by way 
of Clungunford. At Craven Arms we re- 
join the road from Ludlow to Shrewsbury. 

Of the many main roads that converge 
in Shrewsbury I have left to the last the 
one that is in some ways the most im- 
portant, the one that is certainly the most 
famous; that road of great memories and 
great achievement, by which so many Royal 
Mails have travelled breathlessly at the 
dashing pace of eleven miles an hour, and 
by which we may travel to-day at a pace 
that nothing shall induce me to betray : 
Telford's road to Holyhead. It is the road 
by which, if we are fortunate, we are going 
into North Wales. If, however, it is our sad 
fate to turn our backs on that most beau- 
tiful land, we must on no account neglect 
to run over to Llangollen, a distance of 
thirty miles: for though I have left it to 
the last on the assumption that we are 
going on to Wales, it is one of the most 
enjoyable drives in this neighbourhood. 

We leave Shrewsbury by the Welsh 



SHORT RUNS IN SHROPSHIRE 61 

Bridge, the scene of Henry VII.'s remark- 
able entry into the town over the body of 
the stout, wise bailiff ; and as we reach the 
top of the hill beyond it we pass on the 
right the house in which Charles Darwin 
was born. At the corner where the Holy- 
head road turns sharply to the right, about 
half a mile beyond the last houses of the 
town, there stands in a private garden a 
famous tree known as the Shelton Oak. I 
mention it merely because its fame rests on 
a libel. There are those who will tell you 
— cheerfully taking a great man's name in 
vain — that Owen Glyndwr sat in this tree 
watching the Battle of Shrewsbury when he 
should have been taking part in it. Our 
knowledge of this fiery prince's character- 
istics might be enough, one would think, 
to discredit the tale, without the proved 
fact that he was extremely occupied in 
South Wales at the time ! But still the tale 
is told. 

Soon, at Montford Bridge, we cross the 
Severn, white with water-weeds in the sum- 
mer, and fringed with purple wild-flowers, 
and then, with what speed we may, spin 



62 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

happily towards the Welsh hills. We can 
see them on our left ; the striking outline 
of the Breidden, with Rodney's Pillar on 
its topmost point, and beyond it a long 
blue range that limits all the western hori- 
zon. At one spot only we have a choice of 
roads. Telford's road goes by Oswestry, an 
ancient town with an immense history but 
few relics ; but if at the " Queen's Head," 
fourteen miles from Shrewsbury, we turn to 
the right, following the telegraph-posts, we 
shall cut off more than a mile of distance 
and shall see Whittington. 

There are some places that are peculiarly 
haunted. One is infinitely more conscious 
in them of the past than of the present. 
Such are Hay and Beaupre — both of which 
we shall see later on. But Whittington is 
not so much haunted as haunting. Hay and 
Beaupre are enchanted : Whittington is itself 
the enchantment. It stands in a clump of 
trees by the wayside, in the middle of the 
village, and one comes upon it suddenly : a 
great fortified gateway of pale grey stone, 
reflected in the weed-grown water of what 
was once its moat — and leading nowhere. 



SHORT RUNS IN SHROPSHIRE 63 

One thinks, not of its history, but of itself. 
One cannot believe that it is merely the 
entrance to a vanished mediseval castle ; it 
is rather the Gate of Dreams, through which 
every man sometimes passes in search of his 
heart's desire. 

There is an old Norman-French romance 
that tells us how the White Tower was built 
by William Peverel of the Peak, and how he 
promised it as a dowry to Melette, the fairest 
of his nieces. " But none found favour with 
her. And William reasoned with her, and 
besought her that she would discover unto 
him if there was in the world any knight 
whom she would take for lord. . . . ' Certes, 
Sire,' said she, ' no knight is there in all the 
world that I would take for the sake of riches 
and the honour of lands, but if I ever take 
such an one he shall be handsome, and 
courteous, and the most valiant of his order 
in Christendom.'" So William proclaimed a 
tourney at the Peak, with Melette and the 
White Tower for the prize ; and among those 
who came to try their fortune was one 
Guarin de Metz, well clad in red samite, with 
a crest of gold. "To record the blows and 



64 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

the issues I am not minded," says the story, 
" but Guarin de Metz and his company proved 
that day the best, the fairest, and the most 
valiant, and above all, Guarin was the most 
praised in all ways." So Guarin won the 
fastidious Melette of the White Tower, " and 
with great joy did he take her, and the 
damsel him." * 

This romance is not very reliable history, 
I fear, but it is true that Whittington be- 
longed at one time to the Peverels, and later 
to the Fitz-Warines or Guarins, of whom it 
was probably the third who built this gate in 
the reign of John. 

Two miles beyond Whittington is Gobowen, 
where we rejoin the main road ; and soon 
afterwards we dip into the narrow valley 
below Chirk, and with the railway and the 
canal high above us on the left, cross the 
little Ceiriog into Wales. 

'^ " The History of Fulk Fitz-Warine," translated by 
Alice Kemp -Welch. 



A TOUR IN NORTH WALES 



A TOUR IN NORTH WALES 

"T TERE, on the very border of Wales, one 
-' — *- is conscious of the Celtic atmosphere. 
We left the quiet orderliness of England 
behind us when we dipped down into this 
little valley, where the sparkling, bubbling 
Ceiriog — every inch a Celt — calls to us to 
follow it up into the hills. And so we will, 
as soon as we have climbed the other side 
of the valley into Chirk village ; turning 
there to the left, though our rightful road, 
the road to Llangollen, lies directly in front 
of us. In Wales we shall find ourselves 
constantly tempted to leave the highway, 
and in most cases we shall be rewarded if 
we yield to the temptation without ado. In 
this particular case we shall be rewarded 
with a dear little glen, feathery birch-trees 
on the steep slopes, a yellow carpet in prim- 



68 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

rose time, and a most charming little hotel 
about six miles up the valley, at Glyn 
Ceiriog. 

Near Chirk the road sweeps round under 
the trees of the deer-park, where " there is 
on a smaul hille a mighty large and stronge 
castel with dyvers towers " ; towers that have 
stood here for many generations, defying 
time and war ; for this castle of Chirk is no 
ruin like most of its contemporaries, but an 
inhabited house. Yet not these towers, I 
believe, but the old Welsh Castell Crogen, 
stood here when Henry II., with " the chosen 
warriors of England," and of several other 
countries, marched up this valley to join 
battle with the great Owen Gwynedd and all 
the might of Wales, who were encamped near 
Corwen. The English, finding the trees in 
their way, cut them down as they advanced, 
which so much infuriated some of the Welsh 
who were separated from their main army, 
that the Ceiriog ran red with the blood of 
Henry's chosen warriors. This Battle of 
Crogen took place just below the older 
castle. 

Perhaps the most dramatic event in the 



A TOUR IN NORTH WALES 69 

life of the present Chirk Castle was when 
it fell into the hands of the cavaliers, and 
its owner, Sir Thomas Myddleton, a Parlia- 
mentary leader, was obliged to besiege his 
own house in his own person. I believe that 
on one day of the week the world at large 
is allowed to pass through the beautiful gates 
of wrought iron, and up the long slope of 
the avenue, and into the castle itself, to see 
all the treasures of art and history that 
George Borrow saw when he was here : the 
cabinet of Charles II., and the portraits of 
Nell Gwynne, and of " the very proud 
daughter of the house," as Borrow calls 
Addison's wife, " the Warwick Dowager who 
married the Spectator, and led him the life 
of a dog." 

Across Chirk Park runs Offa's Dyke, the 
long embankment " that was cast up with 
great labour and industry by Offa the 
Mercian, as a boundary between his Subjects 
and the Britains, from the mouth of Dee to 
that of the River Wye. . . . Concerning which 
Joannes Sarisburiensis in his ' Polycration ' 
saith that Harald establish'd a law that what- 
ever Welshman should be found arm'd on 



70 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

this side the limit he had set up, then . . . 
his right hand should be cut off by the 
King's Officers." It touches the high-road 
a few miles beyond Chirk, just before 
we begin the wonderful descent into the 
Vale of Llangollen ; that long slope down 
which we swing for several miles on a 
perfect gradient and a perfect surface — 
marred, however, by an awkward turn — 
with the whole beautiful valley spread 
out before us, and the Dee sweeping far 
below us, spanned by the remarkable aque- 
duct called Pont-y-Cysylltau. Beyond it rise 
the Eglwyseg crags, and far away the 
shattered fortress of Dinas Bran is visible 
almost from the first on its peak above 
Llangollen. " The castelle of Dinas Brane," 
says Leland, "was never a bigge thing, but 
sette al for strenght as in a place half in- 
accessible for enemyes." Even in his day it 
was " al in mine," and now there is only 
a fragment left of it to remind us of those 
princes of ancient Powys who built it in days 
so old as to be unchronicled, and defied the 
power of the Saxon from within its walls ; 
and of its owner in later days, Madoc ap 



A TOUR IN NORTH WALES 71 

Gryffyth Maelor, who built the Abbey of 
Valle Crucis ; and of the fair Myfanwy, " all 
smiles and light," who was loved by a poor 
bard of the fourteenth century, and celebrated 
by him in a poem that still exists. 

At the foot of the crag on which Dinas 
Bran is perched lies Llangollen — a little town 
that owes its charm entirely to its position. 
Only a few miles away, in Shropshire, an 
ugly house is an exception : in Wales it is 
unfortunately the rule. A town or village 
that is really pretty in itself, apart from its 
surroundings, is almost unknown. But so 
lovely is the position of Llangollen that in 
spite of its rather squalid streets it is an 
entrancing place ; so entrancing that Robert 
Browning lived for some time at the Hand 
Hotel, and the two famous " Ladies of Llan- 
gollen," Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Pon- 
sonby, chose it out of all the world for their 
life-long home. Llangollen is still dominated 
by " the Ladies," almost as much as by Dinas 
Bran itself. They adorn the windows of all 
its photograph shops ; they shine in crude 
colours from all its china mugs ; and in its 
churchyard we learn from an extremely ugly 



72 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

tombstone that one of them, in the opinion 
of the other, had " manners worthy of her 
Illustrious Birth." It must be admitted that 
such is not the impression given by the im- 
partial. It became the fashion for travellers 
of mark to visit this quaint couple in their 
house up there on the hill, and they them- 
selves insisted on its being also the fashion 
to give them presents — carvings, miniatures, 
curiosities of all kinds. If we care to climb 
a steep hill we may see the outside of Plas 
Newydd now, a black-and-white house, which 
must have been really pretty in its original 
simplicity, but is now overladen with a 
mass of carving. From the road we can see 
the porch in which " the Ladies " once stood 
" fussing and tottering about in an agony of 
expectation," waiting for Sir Walter Scott, 
and looking, says Lockhart, "like a couple 
of hazy or crazy old sailors." " Who could 
paint," he goes on, " the prints, the dogs, the 
cats, the miniatures, the cram of cabinets, 
clocks, glass-cases, books, bijouterie, dragon- 
china, nodding mandarins, and whirligigs of 
every shape and hue — the whole house out- 
side and in covered with carved oak . . . and 



A TOUR IN NORTH WALES 73 

the illustrated copies of Sir W.'s poems, and 
the joking, simpering compliments about 
Waverley." But whether their manners were 
worthy of their Illustrious Birth or not, they 
were true friends to each other, and the 
guardian angels, as Lockhart admits, of 
Llangollen. It is an interesting fact (which 
should not be forgotten) that the church 
under whose shadow they lie is dedicated to 
St. Collen ap Gwynnawg ap Clydawg ap 
Cowrda ap Caradog Freichfras ap Llyr 
Merimap Eini Yrth ap Cunedda Wledig. 

Far more important than Plas Newydd 
or its memories of vanished mandarins and 
whirligigs is the work of that prince of 
Powys, whose name I mentioned in connec- 
tion with Dinas Bran — Madoc ap Gryffyth 
Maelor. In Pant-y-Groes, or the Valley of 
the Cross, stands Madoc's ruined abbey, the 
most perfect retreat, surely, that ever brought 
comfort to the sad or sinful. It was of the 
Vale of Llangollen that Ruskin characteristi- 
cally wrote : " The whole valley, when once 
I got up past the Works (whatever the 
accursed business of them) seemed to me 
entirely lovely in its gentle wildness." And 



74 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

it is this very quality of gentle wildness that 
gives such charm to the little Glen of the 
Cross, which joins the larger valley of the 
Dee just above Llangollen, and is reached 
by way of the old stone bridge that was 
the first of its kind in Wales. 

When, in a few minutes, we see the gable 
of Valle Crucis Abbey below us on the right, 
we leave our car by the roadside. We leave, 
indeed, the whole world behind us as we 
pass through the heavy door by which there 
was once no returning. The narrow wooded 
valley hems us in, the trees are close round 
us, the waters of the fishpond, in their 
absolute stillness, add to the sense of aloof- 
ness and peace. And under our very feet, 
perhaps, is the dust of lolo Goch, the famous 
bard who sang of " Owain Glyndwr, the 
great, the good " ; for lolo's unmarked grave 
is here ; and here, too, lies Madoc, who built 
this abbey in the last year of the twelfth 
century ; and Myfanwy, the beautiful prin- 
cess, " fairer than the cherry's bloom " ; and 
others who died long, long before them. 
To antiquarians the tombs of Valle Crucis 
are full of interest, for there are some that 



A TOUR IN NORTH WALES 75 

seem to prove, says the custodian — himself 
an antiquarian — that this Cistercian house 
rose on the site of an older Benedictine 
building. The Cistercians never used warlike 
symbols, but always the sign of the Cross ; 
yet here on two stones of very early date — 
the sixth or seventh century — are carved 
the sword, the spear, and the battleaxe. 
Fragments of stained glass, too, have been 
unearthed, and coloured tiles, though the 
Cistercian Rule forbade the use of colour 
in any form. This austere Order, however, 
while avoiding the use of the sword as a 
symbol, was apparently not averse to using 
it as a weapon on occasion, for it was by 
fighting the Benedictines in a neighbouring 
field, according to the custodian's theory, 
that they became possessed of the site of 
their abbey. Truth to tell, the extreme 
austerity of the Cistercians seems to have 
relaxed in later days, for we hear after a 
time of four courses of meat in silver dishes 
at Yalle Crucis, and of an abbot with three 
of his fingers covered with rings. But these 
are disturbing thoughts. Let us rather take 
away with us a picture of the quiet fish- 



76 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

pond, with its water-weeds and clumps of 
yellow flags, and the gable of the church 
reflected in it line for line, and on the bank 
a hooded figure, dressed in white, with a 
placid face and a busy fishing-rod. 

Quite near the abbey in a field is a far 
older relic, Eliseg's Pillar, the rough stone 
monument that gave its name to the Valley 
of the Cross, though as a matter of fact 
it was probably never a cross. It was once 
much higher than it is now, but in the 
days of the Civil War the name of the 
valley was enough to make it suspect^ and 
the pillar was thrown down by the Puritans 
on the chance of its once having been a 
cross. It has been much discussed and dis- 
agreed about, but at all events its very 
great antiquity is a certainty, and the in- 
scription that is now illegible was luckily 
copied several centuries ago. " Concenn," it 
tells us, " the great grandson of Eliseg, 
erected this stone to the memory of his 
great-grandfather, Eliseg. This is that Eliseg 
who recovered his inheritance of Powis by 
his sword from the power of the Angles." 

Returning to Llangollen we cross the Dee 



A TOUR IN NORTH WALES 77 

again and go on our way upon the road to 
Holyhead, up the ridge of Rhysgog, past 
Berwyn Station, and so out of the Vale of 
Llangollen into that of Edeyrnion. The Dee 
is still below us on the right, with thickly 
wooded hills beyond it ; and on the left are 
rocky heights, sometimes bare and some- 
times softened by trees. We have a lovely 
run before us down the valley, but if we 
are prudent we will drive slowly in the 
neighbourhood of Coriven. 

But here, at the head of the valley, we 
are eight miles away from Corwen, and 
have other things to think of — great things, 
indeed : the last struggle for Welsh free- 
dom, and the man who was the heart and 
the head of it, that strange mixture of 
ruthless vengeance and lovableness, Owen 
Glyndwr, who as a pattern squire, rather 
scholarly and very hospitable, spent many 
quiet years, living sometimes here at Glyn- 
dyfrdwy beside the Dee and sometimes at 
his other house at Sycharth, and then sud- 
denly, at the touch of injustice, unfurled 
the red dragon of Uther and became the 
implacable devastator whose name meets us 



78 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

in every ruin in Wales. Nothing remains 
now of his house, for Prince Hal descended 
upon it one day, and, having left it level 
with the ground, wrote to his " very dear 
and entirely beloved " Wardens of the 
Marches to tell them all about it. After 
describing the burning of Sycharth and of 
many houses round it he goes on : " Then 
we went straight away to his other place 
of Glyndourdy, to seek for him there. 
There we burnt a fine lodge in his park, 
and all the country round ; and we remained 
there all that night." Above the spot where 
the fine lodge stood is a curious tumulus 
crowned with firs, quite close to the road. 
It is known as Owen's Mount, not because 
he made it, for it is far older than he, but 
because there is a story that he used it as 
a kind of watch-tower. It was at Corwen, 
some say, that he first raised his standard ; 
but the other memories of him here are 
legendary and trivial. 

From Corwen to wild Cerrig-y-Druidion — 
the Rock of the Druids — the road rises 
steadily, and leads to nothing of note but 
the lovely little Pass of Glyndyffws, a deep 



A TOUR IN NORTH WALES 79 

and narrow defile of sudden unexpected 
beauty that connects two tracts of rather 
dull country. Here, where the Ceirw flings 
itself into the ravine from a great height 
and foams among the rocks far below us, 
Telford has thoughtfully supplied us with 
several little recesses in the wall from which 
to enjoy the view. I have heard that he 
cut his name in the stone of one of them, 
but I have never been able to find it. 
Perhaps it was to his name that George 
Borrow objected when he came here and 
laughed at " Mr. T." for being eager for 
immortality. There was no need for Telford 
to be over-anxious about his immortality ; 
nor yet, indeed, was there any for Borrow 
to flout him because he was not a Welsh 
bard ! 

Tyn-y-nant, where " little Dick Vickers," 
late of Shrewsbury Mail, hanged himself 
rather exclusively, is a place of a dreary sort ; 
and so is Cerrig-y-Druidion ; and so, most 
of all, is the straight road from Cerrig to 
Cernioge, a piece of road that catches all 
the winds of heaven, and always seems 
longer than it was last time. Open the 



80 MOTOK TOURS IN WALES 

throttle here, and be thankful — if the weather 
be cold — that your good engine is humming 
before you, and is making a better pace than 
the eleven miles an hour of which the shiver- 
ing travellers on this road used to boast. 
Cernioge is to us merely an unkempt farm- 
house, but to them it meant a fire and hot 
drinks, for it was once a posting-house of 
considerable renown. 

At Cernioge begins the descent into the 
valley of the Conway ; and it is here that 
we first see, stretched out before us like 
the Promised Land, the distant grandeur of 
Snowdonia, the wild, impenetrable fortress 
of the Welsh and the trap of the invading 
English. When Pentre Voelas is passed the 
beauty grows and grows, mile by mile, and 
we are gently gliding down into the very 
heart of it; wild crags to the right of us, 
and before and below us a sea of woodland, 
valley beyond valley and hill beyond hill. 
There is one turn of the road where nearly 
every car draws up. The valley of the 
Conway lies at our feet, with here and 
there the river shining through the trees ; 
the Lledr Valley stretches away and merges 



A TOUR IN NORTH WALES 81 

into the distant moors ; Moel Siabod's peak 
rises at the end of it ; and over Siabod's 
shoulder appears, on a clear day, a wedge- 
shaped corner of Snowdon, faintly blue. I 
have seen this view at many times of the 
year, and the best time of all is May. 

For the woods that are at our feet, the 
woods that gave its name to Bettws-y-Coed, 
the Chapel in the Wood, are at their best in 
May, when every tree has its own individual 
shade of colour, the larch its tender green, 
and the budding oak its pink and gold. But, 
indeed, Bettws is always lovely. Nothing 
can spoil its innate simplicity ; not even the 
smart hats and parasols that look so incon- 
gruous in its little street in July and August. 
It exists only for tourists ; there are several 
good hotels, and, roughly speaking, all the 
other houses are lodgings ; yet in spite of 
all, Bettws is a village still. Those who like 
to settle down comfortably and motor round 
a centre, instead of touring from place to 
place, will find this much the most central 
and convenient spot from which to explore 
North Wales. And in any case, I think we 
must stay here for a night or two. We 

7 



82 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

must drive to Rhuddlan and Conway and 
Dolwyddelan ; we must stand on the Pont- 
y-Pair and watch the tempestuous Llugwy ; 
we must inspect David Cox's famous sign- 
board at the Royal Oak ; and in the evening' 
when the dusky yews are all in shadow, we 
must sit in the churchyard beside the Con- 
way, where the great artist loved to paint. 
The church — the " Chapel in the Wood " — is 
uncouth and bare, and not improved by 
modern windows ; but it has stood here for 
many centuries, and among its ugly pews 
we realise with a thrill that the tomb at 
our feet holds the dust of a prince of 
Llewelyn's house. 

This is the country of Llewelyn the Great. 
On one side of us is the valley that tradition 
names as his birthplace ; on the other the 
valley where he was buried. His grave we 
cannot see, for his burial-place at Aberconwy 
was desecrated when Edward I. built his 
great castle ; but on the way from Bettws to 
Rhuddlan we may pause at the church of 
Llanrwst and see there, on the floor of 
Inigo Jones's chapel of the Wynnes, the 
coffin of stone that once held the bones of 




THE LLUGWY AT BETTWS-Y-COED. 



A TOUR IN NORTH WALES 83 

the greatest of the Welsh princes. There 
are a good many interesting things here — 
things much older than the church itself ; 
but not the least pleasing, 1 think, is the 
Latin epitaph that the former rector com- 
posed, with a pretty wit, for his own tomb. 
It has been thus translated : — 

" Once the undeserving schoolmaster, 
Then the more undeserving lecturer, 
Last of all the most undeserving rector of this 

parish. 
Do not think, speak, or write anything evil of 

the dead." 

If we are going to Rhuddlan it will not 
be necessary for us to cross the shaking 
bridge, designed — perhaps — by Inigo Jones. 
I see no object in a bridge shaking, my- 
self, but there are always those at hand 
who for a consideration will shake you the 
bridge if it gives you pleasure. Our way, 
however, lies to the right, up a winding hill 
three miles in length, with an average 
gradient of 1 in 12. It is a serious climb; 
but the backward view of the mountain 
range beyond the Conway is magnificent — a 
view of rather a rare quality, and not often 



84 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

seen by those who depend upon horses' 
legs or their own. The road that crosses 
the top of the hills runs through scenery 
of rather a commonplace type ; then, as we 
drop down into Abergele the Morfa Rhudd- 
lan lies before us like a map — a dull map 
— with fashionable Rhyl in the distance ; and 
from Abergele to Rhuddlan the road is surely 
the straightest and flattest that ever was seen. 
The ivy-smothered towers of Rhuddlan 
Castle stand on the banks of the Clwyd. 
That great statesman and soldier, Edward I., 
being weary of the "Welsh Question," 
determined to get the affair finished once 
for all; so he rebuilt this castle, settled 
down here with his Court and family, con- 
quered the country, made its laws, and saw 
that they were carried out. There is a 
remnant still standing of the house where 
he held his parliament and "secured its in- 
dependence to the Principality of Wales." 
These words, though not Edward's, are quite 
in the spirit of his little jokes. It was here 
that he played his historical practical joke 
upon the Welsh nation, when he promised 
them a prince who was a native of Wales 



A TOUR IN NORTH WALES 85 

and could not speak a word of English — 
and then showed them the baby. There is 
nothing for us to see inside this castle, for 
Cromwell altogether dismantled it, and its 
heavy green towers, though impressive 
enough as being the grave of Welsh inde- 
pendence, are not nearly so typical of the 
" ruthless king " as his great fortresses of 
Carnarvon and Harlech and Conway. 

Conway is only seventeen miles away, and 
we may see it on our return journey to Bettws, 
by driving back to Abergele, where there is 
a nice old posting-house, and thence passing 
on above Colwyn Bay. Five hundred years 
ago another traveller came by this way 
from Conway : a poor, duped, heart-sick king 
riding helplessly to imprisonment and mys- 
terious death. It was at Conway that 
Bolingbroke's messenger Northumberland, a 
man of a most treacherous heart, met 
Richard II. with solemn vows of friendship ; 
and along this coast that they rode to- 
gether, still smiling, the knave and the fool, 
to Rhuddlan and Flint, where Bolingbroke's 
army lay waiting on the sands o' Dee. 
Those splendid walls and towers of Conway 



86 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

that we see beyond the estuary, piled high 
above the water-side, were Richard II. 's last 
refuge. From that day forward every roof 
that sheltered him was a prison. 

All through the history of Wales this 
estuary has played an important part. 
Long, long before Edward's magnificent 
towers rose over the desecrated burial-place 
of the great Llewelyn there was a castle 
guarding the river-mouth at Deganwy. We 
can see its fragments still if we choose to 
drive round that way before crossing to 
Conway ; but there is only a remnant left, a 
few stones on a hillside facing the sea — stones 
that tell of Maelgwyn of the sixth century, 
and of Norman Robert, lord of Rhuddlan, 
who rebuilt Maelgwyn's fortress and met 
his death there, and of King John of 
England, who was starved out by the 
Welsh. Robert of Rhuddlan's death was 
picturesque, and, I imagine, well deserved. 
This was the manner of it. He was still 
employed in rebuilding the Welsh castle of 
Deganwy for the harrying of the people to 
whom it really belonged, when one day he 
fell asleep — a rash thing to do in those days 



A TOUR IN NORTH WALES 87 

and in that place. Then came Griffith, 
Prince of Grwynedd, with his ships, and 
stole all Robert's cattle, and was just setting 
sail again when Robert awoke and saw 
what was going forward. Down this steep 
bank below the castle he dashed to the 
shore, and fought desperately, with only one 
follower to support him; but soon died, of 
course, by the spears of the Welsh. Griffith 
nailed his head to the mast and sailed away ; 
then, when the Normans chased him, flung 
it into the sea before their eyes. 

As for King John, when he in his turn 
tried to strengthen the fortress of Degan^vy, 
he was glad enough to escape with his wicked 
head on his shoulders. He had come into 
Wales " minded to destroy all that had life 
within the country " ; but he departed, we 
are told, in a great fury, leaving a large 
proportion of his army behind him for 
Llewelyn to bury. For the Welsh had cut 
off all the supplies of the English, " so that 
in time they were glad to take up with horse- 
flesh or anything, were it never so mean, 
which might fill up their greedy and empty 
stomachs." So says Caradoc of Llancarvan. 



88 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

Other historians give us a letter written on 
the spot by a certain knight, a man of parts, 
of whose life and letters one would like to 
know more. He describes the royal army 
as " watching, fasting, praying, and freezing. 
We watch," he continues, " for fear of the 
Welsh. . . . We fast for want of provisions. 
. . . We pray that we may speedily return 
safe and scot-free home ; and we freeze for 
want of winter garments, having but a thin 
linen shirt to keep us from the wind." This 
vivid letter-writer goes on to tell us of the 
spoiling of Aberconwy Abbey and the burn- 
ing of all the valuable old Welsh records 
there, and he shows a good deal of nice 
feeling in the matter. 

It was on the ruins of Aberconwy that 
Edward's glorious castle rose later on to 
overawe the Welsh. This Castle of Conway 
is the most beautiful of all Henry de Elfre- 
ton's works, I think ; more beautiful in itself 
even than Harlech ; and we can well believe, 
as we drive across the bridge and under the 
great machicolated town gate, that in early 
days it could only be taken by the help of 
guile or famine. Glyndwr's men won their 



A TOUR IN NORTH WALES 89 

way in by disguising one of their number 
as a carpenter, and to dislodge them Hot- 
spur, finding his engines useless, was obliged 
to starve them out. During the Civil War 
the castle was held for the King by the 
Archbishop of York, an extremely " muscu- 
lar Christian," who on being superseded in 
his command felt the slight so deeply that 
he joined Mytton the Roundhead, and him- 
self led the assault ! And these great walls, 
fifteen feet in thickness, yielded at last. As 
one climbs the long flight of steps to the 
entrance with all these things in one's mind 
there is something almost overwhelming in 
the grandeur of these strong towers. 

" A very neat castle," says Camden. 

When we have had our luncheon at the 
Castle Hotel we must cross the road to 
Plas Mawr, the town house of the Wynnes 
of Gwydir, who entertained Queen Elizabeth 
there more than once, and even decorated 
her rooms with appropriate symbols, royal 
arms, and monograms. The plaster mould- 
ings in this house are its special feature : 
fireplaces, ceilings, walls, all are ornamented 
with them, and in each room the design is 



90 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

different. One cannot, however, enjoy the 
mouldings and the oak furniture and the 
priests' hiding-hole and the lantern window 
with an undivided mind, for the Plas Mawr 
ghost — unconventional soul ! — walks by day- 
light. 

We leave Conway by the road that 
follows the western bank of the river, for 
by so doing we secure an impressive back- 
ward view of the old town walls, which 
is ample compensation for the steep ascent 
that soon carries us out of sight. More- 
over this road, after a few more hills and 
a few more miles of level going, with a 
view up the valley that grows lovelier 
every moment, will lead us to Trefriew, a 
dear little watering-place with a good 
hotel. The tiny church here has no out- 
ward attractions ; it has not even any 
appearance of age. Yet it has its own 
romance ; for it is said that when the 
English wife of Llewelyn the Great — Joan, 
the daughter of King John — found the 
severe climb to the old church of Llan- 
rhychwyn too much for her, her thoughtful 
husband built this one for her at the foot 



A TOUR IN NORTH WALES 91 

of the hill. Those who do not share her 
feelings may still see, on the heights 
above the village, the yet older church 
where Llewelyn worshipped before his 
wife objected to the walk. And beyond it 
again, on the wild hill-top, is Llyn 
Geirionydd, on whose shores lived Taliesin, 
the Bard of the Radiant Brow, the most 
famous of all the Welsh bards. 

Between Trefriew and Bettws there are 
but a few miles of level road and very 
lovely scenery. Gwydir Castle, the old 
house of the Wynnes, stands between us 
and the river, and may be seen when 
Lord Carrington is away. It is full, I 
believe, of carvings and tapestry and relics 
of history. Queen Elizabeth stayed here, 
and Leicester, and Charles I. 

But here among these wild Welsh hills 
Elizabeth's starched ruff and Charles's 
curls strike one as a little out of place. 
We may find memories of Elizabeth — who 
seems to have slept in as many different 
places as a motorist — in half the towns 
and big houses of England. This is the 
country of the Kings of Gwynedd. 



92 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

We saw the Lledr Valley stretched out 
before us as we came down the hill from 
Pentre Voelas to Bettws. But that bird's- 
eye view of it gives one no idea at all of 
its extreme beauty; of the towering height 
of its steep slopes, now bare and rocky, 
now richly wooded : of its brilliant colour- 
ing and deep purple shadows. At the head 
of it, where its beauty is partly spoiled 
by quarries and all their works, is Dolwyd- 
delan village ; and beyond that again, 
standing alone among the desolate hills, 
is the stern tower where Llewelyn the 
Great, the "eagle of men," is believed to 
have been born. It is only a square 
tower now, and though it once had two 
towers it was never a place of any size ; 
for Dolwyddelan and Dolbadarn, the two 
mountain strongholds of the princes of 
Gwynedd, did not rely upon their own 
strength, but on the great bewildering 
hills that defended them on every side. 
Thus it was that this small fortress was 
the last to yield to Edward I. And while 
remembering Llewelyn here do not let us 
forget to dedicate one sigh to his poor 



A TOUR IN NORTH WALES 93 

father, lorwerth Drwyndwn— of the broken 
nose — who, when that unfortunate feature 
kept him from his princedom, was given 
this country and its tower by way of 
compensation. 

It is the custom to return to Bettws 
from this point, for reasons that a glance 
at the Contour Book may perhaps ex- 
plain. But the fashion has been set, I 
think, by bicyclists, whom one really cannot 
blame for shirking the hill that rises between 
Dolwyddelan and Maentwrog. Here let me 
assure motorists that there is little reason 
why they should miss the wild beauty of 
the moors above this point ; the rolling 
expanse of brown and purple bogland, the 
endless succession of hills, the grand outline 
of Moel Siabod. For though the road is 
certainly steep the surface is excellent, except 
for a mile or so above Blaenau Festiniog, 
that strange town on the mountain ledge 
that entirely owes its existence to the 
neighbouring quarries, and yet is more 
than a mile long and has three railway 
stations. There is no need to brave the 
hill again to return to Bettws, for the road 



94 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

by Maentwrog, Penrhyndeudraeth, and the 
Pass of Aberglaslyn is one of the loveliest 
in Wales, and though we shall come down 
the Pass by and by there is no hardship in 
going over the ground twice. It is worth 
remembering, too, that at Maentwrog it is 
possible, if time allows, to cross the valley 
and approach the famous toy railway-line 
at its prettiest point, Tan-y-Bwlch, where a 
lake lies hidden among the woods, and 
where we may have tea on the grass close 
beside the water, facing a scene of rich 
colouring and deep, cool shadows. 

All this, however, is a digression. It is 
highly probable that the great majority 
of motorists will look at the Contour Book 
and return to Bettws from Dolwyddelan. 
They will have the advantage of seeing 
the Lledr Valley from a new point of view. 

Now in the Snowdon country there are 
three great passes through the mountains 
to the sea : the Passes of Nant Ffrancon, 
Llanberis, and Nant Gwynant combined 
with Aberglaslyn. It is hard to say which 
is the most beautiful of the three ; and it 
is quite imperative, and also quite easy, to 



A TOUR IN NORTH WALES 95 

see them all by pursuing rather a zigzag 
course. Nant Ffrancon is the route of the 
Holyhead Road and the nearest to Bettws : 
so we will go down by Nant Ffrancon, and 
come up again by Llanberis on the same 
day; and on the next start off again by 
way of Nant Gwynant and Aberglaslyn, 
passing through Bedd Gelert. 

The road climbs out of Bettws through a 
thick wood beside the rushing Llugwy, and 
soon draws near the Swallow Falls.* This 
triple fall is only a stone's-throw from the 
road, and it is worth while to follow the 
slippery path across the pine-needles, and 
stand for a moment in the pricking spray 
watching the commotion. In the thick of 
the hubbub they say the spirit of Sir John 
Wynne, which left this mortal coil early 
in the seventeenth century, is being 
*' purged, punished, and spouted upon " ; 
though I have never heard anything 
definite against him except that he was 

* I have seen somewhere that the original name of these 
falls was not Ehaiadr y Wennol, or Swallow Falls, but 
Ehaiadr Eweynol, or Foaming Falls. This seems probable : 
but Borrow accepted the former version, and he was a stern 
critic in such matters. 



96 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

" shrewd and successful." He was a mem- 
ber of that Court of the Marches of which 
we heard so much at Ludlow, and he left 
a very valuable record of his family behind 
him. 

This bit of country between Bettws 
and Capel Curig is one of the gems of 
North Wales. Moel Siabod towers above 
us ; and beyond it soon appears that cloud- 
capped peak whose name quickens every 
Welsh heart — the rallying-point of heroes, 
the symbol and stronghold of the liberties 
of Wales. The finest view of Snowdon is 
from Capel Curig, where the double peak 
is reflected in the double lake. 

Our road, still climbing, turns to the 
right in Capel Curig and takes us up into 
the heart of the hills, through a scene of 
splendid desolation — bare heights, huge 
boulders tossed and heaped upon the 
ground, jagged outlines, and dark sullen 
colours —a land that was vastly disconcert- 
ing to those travellers of an earlier day 
whose idea of beauty was " a smiling 
landscape." As we reach the summit and 
see the waters of Llyn Ogwen below us, 



A TOUR IN NORTH WALES 97 

sapphire-blue or lead-grey according to 
circumstances, the great sides of Tryfaen 
and the Glydyrs tower on the left. Beyond 
the lake Alia Wen rises steeply. " A horrid 
spot of hills," says a seventeenth-century 
writer. " The most dreadful horse-path in 
Wales," says Pennant ; and that indeed it 
may well have been before Telford came 
here to perform his miracles of engineer- 
ing. " The district through which the 
surveys were carried is mountainous," he 
says quietly; "and I found the existing 
roads very imperfect." When we have 
passed Llyn Ogwen, and the cottage where 
food is to be had if necessary, and the 
sudden turning over the bridge, and are 
swinging down the gentle slope of Nant 
Ffrancon high up on the mountain-side, 
we must surely give nearly as much 
admiration to this road which descends for 
ten miles with no steeper gradient than 
1 in 15 as we give to the wide Valley of 
the Beavers below us. Above us the 
mountain is a mass of grey boulders, of 
scars and landslips ; below us it sweeps 
down precipitously to where the little 

8 



98 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

Ogwen dances like a streak of quicksilver. 
Presently we pass under the hideous 
excrescence of the Penrhyn slate quarries, 
grey terraces of rubbish contrasting cruelly 
with the glowing gorse of the opposite 
slopes ; and then through the equally 
hideous town of slate. Bethesda, the miners' 
town, whose slate walls, slate steps, and 
slate porches are enough, as Dr. Johnson, 
would say, " to make a man hang him- 
self." Let us hurry on into the Cochwillan 
Woods. 

Very soon after passing the modern towers 
of Penrhyn Castle we reach the town of 
Bangor, " which for the beauty of its 
situation, was called Ban-cor, the high 
or conspicuous choir." It is not a very in- 
viting place, nevertheless, and there is no 
need to pause here, for even the cathedral 
is not beautiful. It has had a great deal to 
bear ; for it was burnt by Harold the Saxon, 
and again by King John, and again by 
Owen Glyndwr ; and no doubt the castle 
built by Hugh, Earl of Chester, suffered on 
one or all of these occasions, for Camden 
says, "though he made diligent inquiry he 



A TOUR IN NORTH WALES 99 

could not discover the least footsteps" of 
it. The original cathedral was founded by 
St. Deiniol in the sixth century, and beneath 
it is buried the great Welsh prince Owen 
Gwynedd, hero of many battles, who fought 
here on the heights above the straits a fight 
so desperate that "the Menai could not 
ebb on account of the torrent of blood 
which flowed into it." Before we go on to 
Carnarvon we must cross those straits, for 
the sake of the bridge, and of the view, 
and of Beaumaris. 

It was in the year 1826 that the mail- 
coach, swaying under its burden of excited 
officials, rolled slowly for the first time 
over the Menai Bridge. It was a brave 
scene. Telford, in his modest way, had 
pleaded against a formal procession, but he 
could not check personal enthusiasm nor 
prevent the mustering of that long, long 
line of carriages and horsemen and thousands 
on foot, which followed the Royal London 
and Holyhead Mail, amid the fluttering of 
flags and the firing of guns, and the roar- 
ing of a gale. Nor yet could he control the 
shouts that rose above the wind when he 



100 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

himself passed by in an inconspicuous 
carriage. 

As soon as we reach the sacred shore of 
Mona, the last home of the Druids, we turn 
sharply to the right ; unless, indeed, we have 
a mind to pursue the Holyhead road for a 
couple of miles, for the pleasure of telling our 
friends that we have seen Llanf airpwUgwyn- 
gyllgogerchwryndrobwllantysiliogogogoch. I 
once heard a rumour that this place was 
to be connected by rail with Pontrhydfen- 
digaedmynachlogf awr, but as the scheme may 
come to nothing perhaps it would be wiser not 
to mention it. 

From the shore road to Beaumaris we see 
the whole grand panorama of the Gwynedd 
mountains, height beyond height and range 
beyond range, from the pale distant peak of 
Snowdon to the dark shadows of steep Pen- 
maenmawr. It is a scene that has a quality 
of strangeness in it. One looks at it from 
the outside, as it were ; for Anglesey, which 
once was green with the sacred groves of 
the Druids, is now, as it was in the days 
of Giraldus Cambrensis, " an arid and stony 
land, rough and unpleasant in its appear- 



A TOUR IN NORTH WALES 101 

ance." One feels, on this flat shore, worlds 
away from that beautiful country beyond 
the strait. On a day of sunshine and cloud, 
when the mountains are glowing with every 
imaginable colour and seem every moment 
to be changing their shapes under the 
moving shadows, it is worth driving many 
a mile to sit on the beach of Beaumaris. 

Behind us, close at hand, is Beaumaris 
Castle ; opposite to us, across the water, is 
"Aber of the white shells," where Llewelyn 
the Great held his Court, and where his 
English wife died ; and a little further along 
the Anglesey shore to our left is Llanfaes, 
where he buried her *'with dire lamentation 
and no little honour," and built over her grave 
a monastery that was altogether destroyed 
by Henry IV. Poor Joan's coffin must have 
been through many changes before the sad 
day when it occurred to some thrifty farmer 
that the queer old stone trough would do 
finely for his cattle to drink out of. It was 
fortunately discovered early in the last cen- 
tury, and another watering-trough having 
been found for the cows, it was placed in 
safety in the garden at Baron Hill. 



102 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

Beaumaris Castle does not make so brave 
a show as most of Edward's fortresses ; but 
its ten low towers and its double line of 
defence were no doubt formidable enough 
before their thick drapery of ivy gave them 
so soft an air. The rusty iron rings that 
hang on the outer wall give one of those 
little touches of the commonplace that bring 
the past so near. Edward I. cut a canal 
and filled the moat of Beaumaris Castle 
from the sea, and so the ships that brought 
supplies to the garrison were moored and 
unladed at the very walls. 

The shores of the Menai have seen a vast 
amount of fighting of a very desperate kind, 
from the days when the Druids stood at bay 
here to the time when Edward I. bridged 
the strait with boats and was badly beaten 
by the last Llewelyn. And as we re-cross 
the bridge and look down at the ancient 
little church of Llandysilio so far below us, 
we may remember another scene — peaceful 
in itself but not unconnected with blood- 
shed — when on a hill near here, Archbishop 
Baldwin and that delightful chronicler 
Giraldus induced many persons, by persuasive 
discourses, to "take the cross." 



Bl 



1 




I 

I 



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A TOUR IN NORTH WALES 103 

From the other side of the Menai, on the 
Carnarvon road, the view is, of course, com- 
paratively tame ; but we have only eight 
miles to travel before reaching Carnarvon, 
and on a level road they are soon dis- 
posed of. 

It is difficult to realise at the first 
moment that the well-preserved, clean walls 
upon which one comes so suddenly in 
the middle of Carnarvon were raised by 
Edward I. ; though that king himself stands 
above the gateway, with his hand on the 
sword that worked so hard. This is the 
greatest of his castles ; he chose it for 
the birthplace of his son, and chose it too, 
apparently, to be the monument and symbol 
of himself. Nothing could be a more fitting 
emblem of the unyielding strength of the 
king who built castles in Wales almost as 
profusely as other men build them in Spain. 
On this, the town side of it, one is more 
struck with its strength than with its 
beauty. To see it at its best one must 
cross the bridge, and from the other side 
of the river-mouth look at the huge bulk 
of it ; the long line of the curtain- wall 



104 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

reflected in the water ; the great octagonal 
towers, with their clusters of slender turrets ; 
the unutterable repellent air of it. There 
are no windows in these cold walls ; no ivy 
or very little, to soften their austerity. 
Even from this side, though the water and 
the shipping give it picturesque surroundings, 
I think Carnarvon Castle is not beautiful 
so much as impressive. When Queen 
Eleanor entered it through the gate still 
called the Queen's she did not see it as it 
stands now, for it was finished by her son, 
who was born in the castle soon after her 
arrival. A little room in the Eagle Tower 
is shown as his birthplace ; but those who 
have read the local records declare it to be 
proved beyond doubt that the tower was 
without a roof till the baby in question, 
Edward II., put a roof on it himself. 

It is surprisingly well preserved. This, no 
doubt, is partly because it has never been 
overcome by any more destructive agent than 
the starvation of its garrison. Glyndwr 
besieged it on its landward side, and his 
French allies attacked it from the sea ; but 
they made little impression upon it, and 



A TOUR IN NORTH WALES 105 

finally, since time was precious, they thought 
it wiser to employ their engines elsewhere 
more profitably, though the garrison within 
numbered only twenty-eight men, in sore 
want of provisions. 

Between Carnarvon and the Pass of 
Llanberis lie ten miles of undulating 
country. But the mountains are towering 
before us like an impassable wall, growing 
ever higher and more formidable as we pass 
Llyn Padarn and Llanberis town, whence 
the mountain-railway starts for the summit 
of Snowdon. No doubt the northern shores 
of Llyn Padarn and of Llyn Peris, which 
lies beyond it, were once beautiful ; but 
they are now merely a mass of unsightly 
debris, mountains of broken slate, terrace 
above terrace of melancholy grey. The 
southern shore of Llyn Peris, however, at 
the very foot of the Pass, has kept its 
own wild beauty, and on a craggy little 
hill that rises at the lower end " there is 
yet a pece of a toure," as Leland says. 
A very notable piece of a tower it is too; 
for Dolbadarn was the very centre and 
heart and ultimate citadel of Welsh free- 



106 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

dom from the earliest days. Here Llewelyn, 
the third and last, kept his brother a 
prisoner for twenty-three years, and here 
Owen Glyndwr hid himself whenever it 
suited him to elude the English, who in- 
variably lost their way among these moun- 
tains. It was here, too, that Owen hid his 
chief enemy, Lord Grey of Ruthin, who 
had embroiled him with the King of 
England and caused all the trouble. But 
this little square grey "pece of a toure" 
is far older, they say, than Owen or 
Llewelyn. It is supposed to have been 
built by Maelgwyn, the same prince 
who built that first castle at Deganwy 
which was rebuilt by Robert of Rhuddlan 
and King John at such large cost to them- 
selves. Maelgwyn, King of Gwynedd in the 
sixth century, is one of the forceful 
characters who stand out here and there 
conspicuously in the rather bewildering host 
of Cymric princes ; a personable man, accord- 
ing to all accounts, and one of great courage 
and success in battle, yet not without lean- 
ings towards the monastic life. He actually 
became a monk for a time ; but no one can 



A TOUR IN NORTH WALES 107 

have been greatly surprised when he tired 
of the constraint and took to soldiering 
again. On the whole I fear he was a 
truculent creature, for Taliesin, "chief of 
the bards of the West," proclaimed, with 
the ambiguity common to prophets, that — 

*' A most strange creature should come from the sea- 
marsh of Rhianedd 
As a punishment of iniquity on Maelgwn Gywnedd, 
His hair, his teeth, and his eyes being as gold." 

And Maelgwyn died of the yellow plague. 
It is only a little way beyond this point 
that the actual Pass of Llanberis begins to 
rise, cleaving its straight course between the 
mountains to the very foot of Snowdon — 
" to the Welsh always the hill of hills," as 
Borrow says. The highest peak, Y Wyddfa, 
is not visible from the Pass, but one 
sharp-edged shoulder in certain lights 
seems to be within a stone's-throw of the 
road. This is the steepest of the three 
passes near Snowdon, and the one whose 
name is best known to the world in 
general. As for beauty — the most beautiful 
of the three is the one on whose royal 



108 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

blues and imperial purples one's eyes are 
actually feasting at the moment. But I 
would say this : to understand even the 
elements of the beauty of these hills it is 
imperative to travel up each of the three 
passes, for as one climbs up into the heart 
of the mountains the effect is in every 
case more beautiful than on the downward 
journey. On a continuous tour this is of 
course impossible ; and that is one reason 
why the best way of seeing Snowdonia is 
to stay for a few days at a centre, such as 
Bettws, or Capel Curig, or Pen-y-Gwryd. 

At one or other of the two latter places 
it will probably be necessary to spend a 
night after this run from Bettws to Bangor 
and Carnarvon. Capel Curig has the finer 
view, and a hotel that has overlooked Llyn 
Mymbyr and faced the peaks of Snowdon 
for many a year. I do not know if it is 
the same that Sir Walter Scott stayed in 
and Lockhart described as " a pretty little 
inn in a most picturesque situation 
certainly, and as to the matter of toasted 
cheese, quite exquisite " ; but it is without 
doubt the same that seemed to George 



A TOUR IN NORTH WALES 109 

Borrow *' a very magnificent edifice." He 
dined here, he tells us, "in a grand 
saloon amidst a great deal of fashionable 
company," who " surveyed him with looks 
of the most supercilious disdain." I strongly 
suspect that both the fashion and the dis- 
dain existed only in a sensitive imagination. 

Pen-y-Gwryd is exactly at the junction 
of the Pass of Llanberis with Nant 
Gwynant, the valley down which our 
future course lies ; and here too there is a 
comfortable inn, with memories of Charles 
Kingsley and the author of " Tom Brown's 
Schooldays." From this point we can start 
off in the morning without retracing a step. 

As one glides down the perfect gradient 
of this entrancing valley of the Glaslyn, 
with the very blue waters of Llyn Gwynant 
glittering below and the sides of Snowdon 
rising precipitously from the shore on the 
right, and on the left the wild green slopes 
climbing up and up from the roadside to 
the sky, one comes after all to a decision 
as to the comparative beauty of these 
passes. Nant Gwynant is the best. The 
hill is three miles and a half long, and in 



110 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

some places just steep enough to force us 
to slacken speed and so make the most of 
our surroundings ; then a few miles of 
undulating road lead past Llyn Dinas and, 
still by the side of the stony Glaslyn, into 
the village of Bedd Gelert, which has won 
fame on false grounds as the burial-place 
of Llewelyn's hound. The rough, pathetic 
tomb, that stands in a meadow and is 
reached by a path made by the feet 
of thousands of pilgrims, has a most 
plausible appearance ; but it was, I believe, 
raised by the forethought of a hotel- 
keeper — a man who apparently knew his 
world. No bones of a faithful dog lie 
here ; but if we may not weep over the 
dust of Gelert we may at all events mourn 
the loss of a beautiful, but dead, legend. 
We drive through the village and enter, 
almost at once, the Pass of Aberglaslyn. 
The steep part of the road is quite short ; 
but this strange cleft in the rock, this 
narrow ravine that holds only the river 
and the road between its cliffs, forms an 
imposing southern gate to the Snowdon 
mountains. We pass out of it almost 



A TOUR IN NORTH WALES 111 

suddenly into the wide, level meadowland 
of the Traeth Mawr — and may the gorse be 
in its full glory at the time ! 

This plain that we are swinging across 
so happily, this plain of green and gold, 
was a barren marsh, useless to man or 
beast, till it was reclaimed in the early 
part of last century by a certain Mr. 
Maddox, who gave his name to the two 
towns that own their existence to him — 
Portmadoc and Tremadoc. At Tremadoc 
lived Percy and Harriet Shelley for a little 
time, while they were still happy. The 
poet, with characteristic enthusiasm, was 
fascinated by the great draining-scheme ; 
and in his leisure moments grounded poor 
Harriet in Latin. 

It is here or at Portmadoc that we turn 
to the right, if we are minded, to explore 
the little-known peninsula of Lleyn. For 
some mysterious reason the greater part of 
this promontory is seldom visited, though it 
is not by any means without attractions. 
It cannot, of course, compare in any respect 
with the dramatic grandeur of the Snow- 
don country ; there are large tracts that 



112 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

might even be called uninteresting ; but 
from the southern uplands the panorama 
of the mountains of Gwynedd is really 
magnificent, and on the northern coast the 
fine outline of Yr Eifl — ridiculously corrupted 
into the Rivals — rises very grandly from 
the sea. And when the gorse is in blossom 
the whole country is veined with gold, for 
here they make their hedges of gorse, and 
the air is heavy with its poignant 
sweetness. 

As for the roads, they are mostly good. 
The roads from Pwllheli to Nevin, to Yr 
Eifl and Clynnogfawr, and to Aberdaron 
are all excellent ; so also is the one that 
connects Nevin with Aberdaron ; but the 
"Saints' Road to Bardsey" from Nevin to 
Llanaellraiarn should be avoided, since the 
saints, apparently, employed indifferent 
engineers. 

To reach Pwllheli from Portmadoe we 
must past through Criccieth, one of the 
most popular places on this coast, and one 
that must have been really beautiful before 
its popularity spoilt it. It has a nice hotel, 
and is, in any case, a far more attractive 



A TOUR IN NORTH WALES 113 

stopping-place than the ambitious Pwllheli. 
The castle, not without dignity, stands aloof 
upon its abrupt round promontory, facing 
the rows of modern lodging-house as though 
they were some new kind of enemy drawn 
up against it. For that Edwardian gateway 
has faced many enemies, and the castle still 
more. Of its original founding I believe 
nothing is certainly known, but it is older 
than its gateway, for Llewelyn the Great 
chose it for the prison of his unruly son, 
Gryffydd, of whom it was said that 
"peace was not to be looked for in his 
neighbourhood." But, indeed, in those times 
a strong prison seems to have been the 
only way of securing peace in any one's 
neighbourhood. 

Much the most picturesque person who 
has ever been connected with Criccieth 
was Sir Howel y Fwyall, or of the Axe. 
So doughty were his deeds at Poictiers 
that the Black Prince not only did him 
honour in the usual ways, with money and 
knighthood, but gave orders that the pole- 
axe with which he had done so valiantly 
should be set up in this castle of Criccieth 

9 



114 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

— of which Howel was Constable — and 
should be served with a mess of meat 
daily. Eight yeoman were entrusted with 
this service, and after the ceremony the 
meat was given to the poor. The custom 
was kept up till the reign of Elizabeth. 

The name of Pwllheli is well known, if ill- 
pronounced, in the world of tourists. It 
aspires to be a fashionable watering-place, 
and one feels that success may possibly 
crown its endeavours, when one considers 
the natural disadvantages of Rhyl and Borth 
and many another prosperous spot. 

A few years ago we should have been 
obliged, having once passed Criccieth, to 
spend the night at Pwllheli ; but now we 
shall do well if we rather choose Nevin for 
our stopping-place. A nice new hotel has 
been built there — a hotel with no foolish 
pretensions, but evidently with every inten- 
tion of gradually becoming a thoroughly 
comfortable abiding-place for golfers who 
like quietness. The little town lies close 
under the shelter of the hills, and between 
it and the sea is the flat land of the Morfa 
Nevin, where Edward I. gathered all the 



A TOUR IN NORTH WALES 115 

chivalry of England and many a foreign 
noble to celebrate his conquest of Wales in 
a great tournament. 

Nevin is threatened with the railway, 
which, if it actually approaches the place, 
will certainly spoil it ; but it will be long, 
I imagine, before any intrusion of that kind 
disturbs the peace or injures the beauty of 
little Aberdaron. It is an elect spot, this 
End of the World in Wales ; more remote, 
less visited than St. David's, and infinitely 
less famous ; yet once trodden, like St. 
David's, by the weary feet of countless 
pilgrims. For just beyond that low head- 
land on our right is sacred Bardsey, the 
Island of the Saints, where lies the dust 
of twenty thousand holy men. St. 
Mary's Abbey, of which some fragments 
still are left, was founded in such early 
days that Dubritius, who crowned King 
Arthur and then resigned the See of 
Caerleon to St. David, came to end his 
day in this remote monastery ; and so holy 
was the soil at last that every monk in 
Wales crossed this dangerous channel to 
kneel upon it. It was here, from these 



116 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

wide, white sands of Aberdaron, that they 
embarked, half trembling, half inspired — 
white-robed Cistercians and sombre Bene- 
dictines — and here, in this little church 
between the hills and the sea, that they 
spent the night on their knees before brav- 
ing dangers that were not by any means 
imaginary. The building has been re-roofed 
and much restored, but these are the very 
walls within which the pilgrims prayed, the 
very walls that once gave sanctuary to any 
man, innocent or guilty, who sought their 
shelter. The blind wall on the north bears 
witness to the early British origin of the 
church. 

And we must not forget, as we stand 
thinking of the pilgrim monks on the 
shore, that this sheltered, isolated corner, 
hidden closely by the hills on the one side 
and protected by the long headlands on the 
other, was once visited by secular history. 
Into this bay sailed Hotspur's father, the 
base Northumberland, from France, and 
from Harlech came Owen Glyndwr and 
Edmund Mortimer ; and here in the house 
of the lord of Aberdaron they swore to be 



A TOUR IN NORTH WALES 117 

thenceforward "bound by the bond of a 
true league and true friendship and sure and 
good union," and to act in all ways as 
became "good true and faithful friends to 
good true and faithful friends." 

The fascinations of the Bay of Aberdaron, 
however, must not blind us to the fact that 
the finest scenery in the Peninsula, of Lleyn, 
is in the north. From Pwllheli we should 
drive across to Llanaellraiarn under the 
great brow of Yr Eifl, and then, turning 
to the right, follow the road between the 
wild, craggy hills and the sea to Clynnogfawr. 
Here lived and died the great St. Beuno, 
and the church that bears his name is of 
a size and importance quite unusual in so 
tiny a place : " almost as bigge as St. 
Davides," says Leland. This large church 
only dates from the fifteenth century, but 
the little chapel where St. Beuno is buried 
is connected with it by a covered way, and 
was founded by the saint himself in the 
seventh century. His tomb was still to be 
seen in Pennant's day, and had the gift of 
working miracles, but now both monument 
and miracles are no more. In the larger 



118 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

church is carefully preserved a strange old 
chest that is said to have belonged to St. 
Beuno. 

To reach the Traeth Mawr from Clynnog 
our best way is to go on to Pont-y-Croes, 
then strike across to Pen-y-Groes, and 
thence descend to Tremadoc. There is not 
much to be said in favour of this road's 
surface, but the beauty of it increases every 
moment, and for the last few miles, as we drop 
gently down on to that plain of gorse that 
lies like a sheet of flame between two ranges 
of purple mountains, we have as fine a sight 
above, below, and before us as any we shall 
find in Wales. A few minutes later we are 
in Portmadoc, and from the long embank- 
ment there look up the valley of the 
Glaslyn across the Traeth Mawr to that 
gate of Gwynedd through which we came 
a little while ago. 

Presently we cross the estuary of the 
river Dwryd by a toll-bridge. I think this 
river-bank must be the scene of a touching 
incident described by Giraldus. He and his 
Archbishop, recruiting for the Crusades, were 
met " at the passage of a bridge " between 



A TOUR IN NORTH WALES 119 

the Traeth Mawr and Llanbedr near Harlech 
by Meredyth ap Conan, a prince of this 
country. He brought with him a large 
suite, and then and there by the river-side 
the Archbishop preached to them, and " many 
persons were signed with the Cross." Among 
these ardent souls was a personal friend of 
the young prince. Meredyth, seated higher 
on the bank than his suite, looked on 
while the symbolic cross was sewn upon 
the cloaks of the new crusaders, till it came 
to the turn of his own friend. Then Mere- 
dyth, says Giraldus, " observing that the 
cloak on which the cross was to be sewn 
was of too thin and too common a texture, 
with a flood of tears threw him down his 
own." 

From the banks of the Dwryd a very level 
road soon brings us within sight of Harlech. 
It is a very distant glimpse of it that we 
have first ; an irregular outline, a grey mass 
of towers standing out against the sky, 
raised grandly upon a rock above a plain 
that is nearly as flat as the sea beyond it. 
Then trees hide it, and we climb through 
the woods to the level of the great gate 



120 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

before which so many armies have stood 
before us — armies of Owen and of Henry, of 
Edward IV., and of Oliver. 

Long, long before Henry de Elfreton, king 
of architects, built this grand fortress at 
Edward's command, a royal castle stood upon 
this rock. So, at least, says one of the 
*' Mabinogion," and here, under the spell of 
the land that created those old romances, 
I would fain believe that Branwen, the 
daughter of Llyr, lived at Harlech with her 
royal brother Bendigeid Vran, and that 
Matholwch, King of Ireland, came across 
the sea to woo her, with thirteen ships 
flying beautiful flags of satin. At the 
wedding, unfortunately, there was trouble 
between the two kings ; but after a certain 
amount of friction the banquet was " carried 
on with joyousness," and the happy pair 
journeyed towards Ireland with their thirteen 
ships. In Ireland Branwen " passed her time 
pleasantly, enjoying honour and friendship," 
which she owed to the fact — we are given to 
understand — that she presented each of her 
visitors with a clasp, or a ring, or a royal 
jewel, " such as it was honourable to be seen 



A TOUR IN NORTH WALES 121 

departing with."* By and by mischief was 
made between Matholwch and his wife, and 
she was sent to the kitchen to cook for the 
Court, which seems a drastic way of treating 
a Queen Consort. Then came Bendigeid Yran, 
her brother, to avenge her, with the hosts 
of seven score o'^nntries and four, and there 
was war between the two islands because 
of her. And only seven men of the Welsh 
escaped, and in Ireland none were left alive 
except ^ve women. And Bran wen went with 
the seven men of Wales to Mona, and she 
" looked towards Ireland and towards the 
Island of the Mighty, to see if she could 
descry them. * Alas ! ' said she, * woe is me 
that I was ever born ; two islands have been 
destroyed because of me ! ' Then she uttered 
a loud groan and there broke her heart. 
And they made her a four-sided grave, and 
buried her upon the banks of the Alaw." And 
her name still lives upon this rock of Harlech 
in Branwen's Tower. 

Bendigeid Vran, the son of Llyr, was not 
the last Welsh prince who held his Court 

* Quotations from the " Mabinogion " are from Lady 
Charlotte Guest's translation. 



122 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

here within sight of Snowdon. For Glyndwr 
made his way in between those great towers 
after a long siege, during which Henry's 
garrison, who were at last reduced to sixteen, 
locked up their governor because they did 
not trust his constancy. Glyndwr brought 
his family here, and held a parliament, and 
gathered a little Court round him ; but after 
another long siege he lost more than the 
castle, for his son-in-law Mortimer was 
killed, and his wife and grandchildren were 
taken prisoners to London. But it was that 
later siege by Edward IV. 's army that was 
the most fierce of all. It was then that the 
March of the Men of Harlech first stirred 
the sea-breeze and the hearts of men ; and 
it was then that the blood of six thousand 
men flowed here where we are standing 
before the gates. Still later on Harlech held 
very obstinately for Charles I. 

At Harlech we look our last on Snowdon, 
for the road, high above the sea, soon turns 
a corner, then dips to the shore at Llanbedr. 
At this pretty village those who are prepared 
to face a road that finally becomes little more 
than a track, and are, moreover, tolerably 



A TOUR IN NORTH WALES 123 

good walkers, may leave the high-road and 
drive up into a very wild and beautiful bit 
of country to Cwm Bychan. I freely admit 
that the enterprise is more suitable for 
bicycles than for motors, and I further 
confess that I have never undertaken it in 
a car myself; but I should be extremely 
happy to make the attempt on the first fine 
day. For Llyn Cwm Bychan is a lovely 
lake lying among moors and steep, rocky 
hills ; it has the wildness of a loch in 
Galloway. And the only way out of this 
hollow in the hills, except the track by 
which we enter it, is a mighty staircase of 
stone slabs set regularly in the hillside — a 
staircase a mile in length, which has with- 
stood time and weather since the feet of the 
Romans passed this way. 

Even the best-advertised car could hardly 
climb the Roman Steps ; so we must rejoin 
the coast road at Llanbedr and go on our 
way to Barmouth. There was once a time 
very long ago, it is said, when all the bay 
that lies upon our right was a fertile plain, 
the Plain of Gwaelod, with cities and 
fortresses thick upon the ground, and a 



124 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

great and busy population, and a king 
called Gwyddno Longshanks. And because 
the land lay so low and the sea so close at 
hand a mighty embankment of stone was 
built along the shore, and all went well for 
many a year. But there came a time when 
the chief overseer of this great dyke was 
Seithenyn ap Seithyn Saidi, and he, un- 
fortunately, has been known ever since as 
one of the *' three immortal drunkards of 
the Isle of Britain." It is easy to imagine 
the result : the decay of the dyke, and the 
terrible night when the waters swept all 
before them and drowned the whole Cantref 
of Gwaelod. The point of Mochras near 
Llanbedr was at one extremity of the 
drowned cantref ; and still, when the tide 
is low, you may sometimes see the long line 
of the broken dyke. As late as the year 
1824 there was a stone in existence which 
had been found below the sea a hundred 
yards beyond the shore, and bore an inscrip- 
tion meaning, "Here lies the boatman to 
King Gwynddo." * I do not know if the 
stone still exists, but as it was used as a 
* Sic, 



A TOUR IN NORTH WALES 125 

footbridge it probably does not. At the 
beginning of the nineteenth century this 
seems, in Wales, to have been considered the 
best way of using up old monuments. It was 
certainly the quickest. 

Eight miles from Llanbedr is Barmouth. 
The town itself is becoming every year 
more entirely a prey to the family group. 
Every year there are more hotels, more 
bathing-boxes, more wooden spades. But I 
doubt if anywhere in England or Wales a 
town is built in a more beautiful spot. You 
cannot drive across the long bridge that 
spans the estuary at its mouth, but you will 
be a thousandfold repaid if you leave your 
car and cross the bridge on foot, for the 
best view — I think I am not too rash in 
saying the best view in Wales — is from about 
the middle of the bridge. The Mawddach 
winds away between two ranges of moun- 
tains, on whose grand slopes the brilliant 
greens and purples, the rich browns and 
far-away faint blues change every moment 
under the varying sky. Cader Idris rises 
on the right in gloomy dignity from the 
soft drapery of foliage that is flung about 



126 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

his feet. And in the foreground, when the 
tide is low — and that, I maintain, is the 
loveliest time — the blue sea is riven with 
the rosy gold of wet sands, dotted with 
countless sea-gulls. 

A great deal of this we can see as we 
drive up the estuary on its northern bank 
to Dolgelley, by an excellent road that clings 
close under the hills. Every moment the 
scene changes, and all the changes are good ; 
whether we look across at Cader's grand 
shoulder against the sky, or up the valley 
at the winding water and the distant hills, 
or overhead on our left at the mountain- 
sides that rise so steeply from the very 
road, or even when, the trees hemming us 
in for a moment, we see only glimpses 
through them of purple rock or shining 
river. At Llanelltyd the Mawddach meets 
the Wnion, and our way lies to the right 
over the bridge. As we cross the bridge 
the ruins of Cymmer Abbey lie upon our 
left on the river-bank — a Cistercian abbey, 
as we may easily guess, since we know the 
pretty taste in scenery possessed by that 
sagacious Order. If the truth were known, 



A TOUR IN NORTH WALES 127 

I fear we might find that their motive 
in choosing, as they always did, the lone- 
liest and loveliest spots in the country, 
was one of self-denial, for the mountainous 
solitude that we love was in their day 
regarded with little less than terror. This 
particular abbey was founded in the last 
years of the twelfth century, and it was 
patronised by Llewelyn the Great. Behind 
it, about two miles away, are the slopes 
of Nannau, where Owen Glyndwr once 
went for a walk with his cousin and came 
back without him. 

Owen, as I have already said, was a man 
of swift and extremely complete vengeance, 
and treachery made his gorge rise. His 
cousin, Howel Sele, the lord of Nannau, 
lived on that hill at the foot of Moel 
Offrwm, and had little sympathy — so far 
and so safe was he from the Marcher 
Lords — with Owen's overbearing ways. 
Their relations had been strained, there- 
fore; but when Howel asked his kinsman 
to visit him at Nannau Owen consented 
without hesitation — yet not without a coat 
of mail beneath his outer garment. As 



128 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

they walked in the park with a few 
retainers they saw a buck at some dis- 
tance among the trees, and Owen, anxious 
to please, suggested that Howel should show 
his well-known prowess with the bow. 
Howel raised his bow, took aim, paused a 
moment ; then suddenly turned upon his 
traitor's heel and shot the arrow straight 
at the heart of his kinsman. One can 
picture Owen's smile as the arrow rang 
upon the coat of mail that he wore unseen. 

Howel went home no more. What dread- 
ful fate bef el him no one knows for certain ; 
for probably all his own retainers were 
killed and Owen's were too busy to talk. 
But long afterwards a skeleton was found 
in a hollow tree quite near the spot where 
the famous bowman had drawn his bow 
for the last time. The house of Nannau 
was burnt to ashes. 

Before we cross the bridge to Dolgelley 
I should like to call attention to a very 
beautiful drive over the hills between this 
spot and Maentwrog. Beautiful as it is, 
it must on no account be substituted for 
the route by Harlech and the Barmouth 



A TOUR IN NORTH WALES 129 

Estuary, by those who are travelling in 
this neighbourhood for the first time; but 
those who know the estuary well, or those 
who are staying at Dolgelley and wish for 
a circular drive, could not do better than 
go up the Vale of Ganllwyd and over the 
hills to Trawsfynydd and Maentwrog, lunch 
at the Tan-y-Bwlch hotel, and return by 
Harlech. 

For the first few miles the road rises 
through lovely woods ; the tempestuous 
Mawddach shines behind the trees, and 
beyond it, bounding the narrow valley, 
are steep and craggy slopes. At Tyn-y- 
Groes is a charming little hotel, much 
frequented by fishermen, with a fine view 
of the Mawddach and the peak of Moel 
Offrwm ; a delightful place to spend a 
week in summer, since it is within a drive 
of many of the loveliest parts of Wales, 
and has itself an outlook of very striking 
beauty. 

Beyond Tyn-y-Groes the scenery grows 
wilder and the hills more bare ; the road 
rises rather steeply and the surface is not 
all that could be wished. Presently we 

10 



130 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

pass a turning on the left that wonld 
lead us, if we followed it, to the top of 
that strange colossal flight of steps whose 
lower end we saw at Cwm Bychan, the 
way by which the Romans climbed this 
mountain-side; and soon, as we reach the 
summit of the hill, the many peaks of 
the Snowdon range come into sight. After 
this, as is only to be expected, the view 
is continuously fine till we drop into Maent- 
wrog on a precipitous gradient, and find 
ourselves in a valley famed for its beauty. 

But we must return to Dolgelley. 

"Dolgethle," says Leland, who favoured 
phonetic spelling, "is the best village in 
this commote." There is not much, if any, 
of Leland's Dolgelley left, I imagine ; but 
within the memory of this generation there 
was still standing a battered little cottage, 
built half of irregular stone-work and half 
of timber and plaster, that Leland may 
well have seen, though very likely it did 
not interest him nearly as much as it 
would interest us. It has been replaced 
by an ironmonger's shop, and we now 
supply ourselves with petrol on the spot 



A TOUR IN NORTH WALES 131 

where "Owen, by the Grace of God Prince 
of Wales," held his council, and drew up 
the instrument that allied him formally with 
the French. It was now some little time 
since Henry lY.'s council had written to 
him scornfully that the power of the rebels 
was not so great as it was heretofore re- 
ported, and that the people of Wales were 
but of little reputation ; for which reason it 
seemed good to Henry, he said, "not to go 
thither in person, but by one of our Lords 
to do punishment on our said rebels." Henry 
had said that just three years ago, yet the 
rebels were still unpunished. The chief rebel, 
indeed, was now become " our illustrious 
and most dread Lord, Owen, Prince of Wales," 
signing alliances with his royal hand and 
seal, and receiving a gilded helmet as a 
gift from the King of France. 

At Dolgelley we turn eastwards and make 
our way back to the English border. As 
a matter of fact we have not actually reached 
the limits of North Wales, which is divided 
from South Wales by the river Dyfi, or 
Dovey. But for our present purpose it 
will be more convenient to consider a strip 



132 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

of the North — overlapping our present 
route — together with a strip of the South, 
as Mid- Wales, and to return to the border 
by the laborious but beautiful pass that 
rises between Dolgelley and Dinas Mawddy. 

We have six miles of climbing before us, 
close under the heights of Cader Idris, 
through one of the wildest tracts of country 
in wild Wales, where the road at last rises 
steeply between rough stone walls across a 
desolate moor, and a mountain stream dashes 
below us on the right, and in all probability 
a flock of little Welsh sheep makes excitedly 
for the nearest gap. For the Welsh sheep, 
unlike the sheep of England, has somewhere 
in its round, woolly head a glimmer of 
intelligence, and instead of rushing madly 
past every turning and every gap, knows 
where it wants to go and goes there with 
all possible despatch. 

At a point six miles above Dolgelley we 
reach the summit of this precipitous pass, 
the Bwlch Oerdrws, and the valley lies 
below us like a gulf. It is a fine scene 
and a very wild one — wild even when the 
sun is shining, but still wilder when the 



A TOUR IN NORTH WALES 133 

great bare hills are looming through driving 
clouds of rain, and wildest and most beautiful 
of all when the April snow is glistening 
upon the April gorse. 

The steepest part of the descent, the average 
gradient of which is between 1 in 7 and 
1 in 8, is about two miles long. For the 
rest of the journey, through Dinas Mawddy 
and Mallwyd, and up the long climb to 
Cann Office, and so by Llanfair Caereinion 
to Welshpool, there is nothing to pause for, 
except tea at Cann Office. This mysterious 
name, oddly enough, does not appear on 
Bartholomew's map where the place it 
denotes is called Llangadfan. The little inn 
there is very popular with fishermen, who 
seem to have a wonderful knack of securing 
homely comfort. 

Between Cann Office and Welshpool the 
scenery gradually becomes more English in 
character, for Welshpool, though not actually 
on the border, is very near it. " The grounde 
about the bankes and valley of Severn there 
is most pleasunt," says Leland; and "most 
pleasant," I think, describes this country 
perfectly. I cannot do better than end in 



134 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

his words. "And wille I passid this way 
within a iii miles of Walsch Pole I saw a 
veri notable hille beyound the valley on the 
lift hond having iii toppes as iii heddes 
rising owt of one body. . . . Communely 
thei be cauUid Brethin Hilles. Not far 
from thes hilles enterith Shropshir." 



THROUGH THE HEART OF WALES 



THROUGH THE HEART OF 
WALES 

/^NE may enter Mid- Wales by the Severn 
^-^ Valley, or by Knighton and the Teme. 
The probability is that one's action in this 
matter is entirely regulated by circum- 
stances, but if haply it were possible to be 
guided simply by charm the road across the 
wild hills would be the road to choose. For 
wide moorlands, whatever the season, what- 
ever the weather, never fail to be attrac- 
tive ; whereas the valley of the Upper 
Severn is extremely variable in its appear- 
ance. Indeed, I have seen it look almost 
uninteresting : though in the spring, when 
on every hill the fruit blossom is mingled 
with the piercing green of the budding 
larches, I know no place where the youth 
of the year has a more engaging air. 

137 



138 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

In any case, we must pass through New- 
town. Despite its name, despite its modern 
appearance, the newness of this town is only 
comparative ; for its prosperity waxed, I 
believe, as that of Caersws waned ; and 
Caersws, a little higher up the valley, was 
at its zenith in the days of the Romans. 
We pass it by and by on our right : a mere 
village now, of no particular attractions on 
the surface, though no doubt a sufficiently 
interesting past is buried beneath its soil, 
for hypocausts have been found here and 
tesselated pavement, and coins bearing the 
magic name of Marcus Aurelius and other 
names less honoured. Less authentic, but 
more moving, are the associations of the 
broad meadow on our left, the traditional 
scene of Sabrina's flight from — 

"the mad pursuit 
Of her enraged stepdame Guendolen," 

and therefore connected for ever with 
Milton's exquisite lyric, " Sabrina fair.'' 
This is the "glassy, cool, translucent wave" 
beneath which the goddess sits ; this is " the 



THROUGH THE HEART OF WALES 139 

rushy-f ringed bank " from which — they say — 
she still sometimes rises at twilight; and 
here are the cowslips on which she sets 
"her printless feet" so lightly that they 
" bend not as she treads." 

Between Llandinam and Llanidloes the 
scene begins to grow wilder ; abrupt hills 
bare, or patched with gorse, rise from the 
roadside on our left ; we are drawing nearer 
to the slopes of Plynlimmon. At Llanidloes 
there is a picturesque old market-place, and 
the church, founded in the seventh century, 
has some interesting and beautiful frag- 
ments from the Abbey of Cwm Hir; a row 
of fine Early English arches and some 
quaint figures on the beams that support 
the roof. 

At Llanidloes we leave the banks of the 
Severn, and, climbing all the way, pass 
through a prettily wooded gorge into the 
valley of another famous river — the river 
that is more renowned for beauty than any 
other in England — the Wye. But here at 
Llangurig the Wye has few charms, for we 
are at the foot of bleak Plynlimmon, and 
the river flows through a somewhat dull 



140 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

country that is neither fertile nor wild. 
Llangurig itself is a desolate, chilly little 
place, but it has a nice inn^ and I believe 
the fishing is good. About eight miles be- 
yond it we leave the Wye, now a mere 
mountain stream, at a point that is only four 
miles from its source, and after this the 
scenery grows more and more austere, as 
we skirt the bare sides of Plynlimmon. 

Upon those wind-swept slopes the red 
dragon of Wales was once unfurled ; for 
here Owen Glyndwr, with only five hundred 
men, was surprised and surrounded by 
fifteen hundred of the Flemings of Pem- 
brokeshire. He cut his way through them, 
and left two hundred of them behind 
him, and left behind him, too, an un- 
shakable belief that he was a wizard 
indeed. 

These heights are not without grandeur. 
At one point, indeed, there is a very striking 
and unusual view, where the road is high 
upon the hillside, and the river, very far 
below, twists and curls away into the 
distance through a narrow but extremely 
level plain. The surface of this main road 



THROUGH THE HEART OF WALES 141 

to Aberystwith is above reproach, but after 
we turn off to the left on the road to 
the Devil's Bridge it is not so good and 
there are some rather steep hills. 

"If pleasant recollections," says George 
Borrow, "do not haunt you through life of 
the noble falls, and the beautiful wooded 
dingles to the west of the Bridge of the 
Evil One, and awful and mysterious ones 
of the monks' boiling cauldron, the long, 
savage, shadowy cleft, and the grey, crum- 
bling, spectral bridge, I say boldly that you 
must be a very unpoetical person indeed." 

The falls, and the wooded dingles, and 
the monks' boiling cauldron are still beau- 
tiful enough to rouse any poetical feelings 
that we may possess ; but the bridge, alas ! 
is neither crumbling, nor spectral, nor in 
the least poetical. Three bridges now span 
the rushing waters of the Mynach, built 
closely one above the other. The lowest of 
all, dapper and shining with the cement of 
the restorer, is the original bridge built by 
the monks of Strata Florida in the eleventh 
century and ascribed to the Devil, not from 
any uncomplimentary feeling towards the 



142 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

monks, but merely because the bridging of 
the Mynach was no easy matter and de- 
manded a simple explanation. The bridge 
above this is the one that Borrow calls 
modern, though it was built in 1735, and 
now looks older than the first; the top- 
most and newest of all is quite a recent 
achievement, and might well appropriate 
the name of the original structure, since it 
entirely destroys all the picturesqueness of 
the scene. No doubt, however, its existence 
is necessary, for this is the only way across 
the gorge ; and these beautiful wooded hills 
and deep valleys, with the two tempestuous 
streams, the Rheiddol and the Mynach, are 
by no means dependent for their charm on 
the famous bridge. 

The road from this spot to Aberystwith is 
of a most striking and uncommon character. 
It is raised high on one side of the bare 
hill, and overlooks a deep valley, through 
which the Rheiddol twists and curves. The 
great hills beyond the valley are richly 
green in summer, but in the spring are 
chiefly reddish brown, with streaks of the 
vivid larch, and here and there a shining 



THROUGH THE HEART OF WALES 143 

patch of gorse. A run of twelve miles, 
mostly downhill, brings us to Aberystwith. 

At the first glance, seen from a distance, 
it is not unpicturesque. It lies at the end of 
a valley, with the sea beyond it, and in the 
heart of it the castle tower stands up con- 
spicuously to remind one that Aberystwith 
was once something more interesting than a 
popular watering-place. For once all the 
resources of England were combined in an 
attack upon this castle. Guns came from 
Yorkshire, and timber from the Forest of 
Dean ; huge supplies of arms and various 
murderous concoctions were sent from Here- 
ford, and a shipload of carpenters landed in 
the bay to turn the timber into machines 
of war. There was not a young spark in 
the country, apparently, but thought it in- 
cumbent on him as a man of fashion to 
join Prince Hal outside the walls of Aberyst- 
with. 

Yet the end of all this effort and display 
was merely comic. Glyndwr's garrison at 
last, half starving, agreed to yield the castle 
upon a certain day unless Owen meanwhile 
relieved it. The Prince, too hasty, as he 



144 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

sometimes was, went off to London joyfully 
and received the thanks of Parliament for 
having secured Aberystwith — at the very 
moment, had he but known it, when Owen 
and a relieving force were quietly entering 
the besieged castle ! 

This was but one of many sieges suffered 
by Aberystwith, which was always re- 
garded as a place of much importance; so 
much so, indeed, that Strongbow's castle on 
this spot had been battered into uselessness 
before the days of Edward I., who had to 
build another. Prince Henry and Oliver 
have left little enough of that. What 
there is of it — some round towers and a 
piece of the curtain-wall — is more tidy than 
romantic. To tell the truth, Aberystwith is 
not a romantic place. 

It has been my happy fortune to read 
some manuscript letters written by a lady 
from Mid- Wales towards the end of the 
eighteenth century. This is what she says 
of Aberystwith — 

" I have inquired about Aberystwith, where 
the Sea is very rough, and no Apothecary 
near, and most ignorant people in regard 



THROUGH THE HEART OF WALES 145 

to illness, which they are so happy to know 
nothing of, as the Sea is their ownly 
Physition." 

This might be useful as a house-agent's adver- 
tisement, if the next sentence were suppressed. 

" I think the Sea fogs very unwholesom, 
but dare not say so, as they are for ever 
talking about the purity of their air." 

The sea is no longer the only physician 
at Aberystwith ; but the purity of the air 
is still a topic of conversation. 

One of its advantages is that it is only 
fifteen miles from Ystradfflur or Strata 
Florida ; and though this does not lie upon 
our route, so short a run is but a slight 
tribute to pay to a place of such great 
memories. The drive, moreover, will itself 
repay us. The road follows the Ystwith 
most of the way, and crosses it at Trawscoed, 
where splendid beeches overhang the river 
and masses of rhododendrons line the banks. 
There is one formidable hill, with a gradient 
of 1 in 8, from the top of which there is 
a fine view of winding river and wooded 
hills. Soon after leaving the Ystwith we 
join the Teify near its source. 

11 



146 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

In the Abbey itself there is little to see, 
but very much to remember. It was 
founded in the twelfth century by some 
Cistercian monks on land given by a 
Norman ; but its foundation is often ascribed 
to that great prince of South Wales, the 
Lord Rhys, who was one of its chief bene- 
factors. Once it was the grandest house of 
worship in all Wales, the burial-place of 
her southern princes, the depository of her 
archives ; but there is little left to show 
its past greatness but the unique west door- 
way and the remains of six side chapels — 
roofed now with corrugated iron ! Behind the 
south transept is a wedge-shaped strip of 
ground that was the monks' cemetery, where, 
under a stone carved plainly with a cross, 
lies Cadell, the brother of the Lord Rhys. The 
large cemetery that holds the dust of eleven 
Welsh princes is between the Abbey and 
the river. " The ccemiteri wherin the cunteri 
about doth buri is veri large," says Leland, 
"and meanely waullid with stoone. In it 
be xxxix great hue trees." There were 
originally forty of these yew-trees, and now 
there are but two or three, so it is hardly 



THROUGH THE HEART OF WALES 147 

likely that one of the survivors should be 
the tree underneath which Dafydd ap 
Gwilym, the greatest of Welsh poets, was 
buried ; the tree of which Gruffydd Gryg, 
his rival, wrote — 



" May lightnings never lay thee low 
Nor archer cut from thee his bow." 



Mr. Baring-Gould tells us how these two 
bards were constantly in a state of feud 
and bitter rivalry, till an ingenious friend 
put an end to their quarrels by simply 
telling each of them that the other was 
dead, and was to be buried at Strata Florida 
on such-and-such a day — mentioning the 
same day in both cases. Each of the poets, 
in the glow of generosity consequent on the 
death of a hated rival, composed a beautiful 
ode in praise of his enemy, and proceeded 
to the churchyard to read it beside the 
grave. There, of course, they met ; and 
each, determined to read his ode at any 
cost, forthwith read it to the hero of it, 
and buried his enmity instead of his enemy. 
It was somewhere within that " meanely 



148 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

wauUid" cemetery that this quaint scene 
took place ; and it was somewhere within 
these precincts that a thousand frightened 
children crowded together long ago, waiting 
to be carried away from their parents and 
homes in Cardiganshire to the exile in 
England to which Henry IV. had doomed 
them. That is an ill-omened name in 
Ystradfilur — the name of Henry Bolingbroke 
— for in his fury at the rebellion of Glyndwr 
he fell upon this sacred place and ruined 
it, and drove out its monks, and stabled his 
horses at its High Altar. 

To reach Machynlleth, which is our object, 
we must return to Aberystwith — but we may 
do this by a slightly different road, diverging 
at Trawscoed. The surface is better than 
that of the other, and the road is wider, 
but there is one bad hill, with a nominal 
gradient of 1 in 7. As we approach 
Aberystwith we see, beyond the river, a 
little place called Llanbadarn Fawr. Here, 
in very early times, long before the great 
days of Ystradfflur, there was a famous 
monastery, founded by St. Padarn, a con- 
temporary of St. David. Like St. David's 







ARCHWAY AT STRATA FLORIDA. 




NEAR GLANDOVEY. 



THROUGH THE HEART OF WALES 149 

own monastery, it was laid waste by the 
Danes. 

Passing through Aberystwith we climb 
out of it on the further side by a long hill. 
Except the wide view from this hill there 
is nothing of special attraction in any way 
till we have passed Tal-y-bont. Then 
suddenly there comes into sight the head- 
land beyond the Dyfi (Dovey). Far away 
on the left is the sea, and between us and 
it lies a wide and absolutely level plain, 
with Borth showing darkly on the shore. 
Soon we pass Tre-Taliesin, named from the 
great bard of Arthur's day, whose grave is 
said by some to lie on this hillside to the 
right, and by others to be beside the waters 
of Geirionydd. Beyond this village we climb 
through lovely woods of birch and larch, and 
then we run down, leaving the trees behind 
us, into the beautiful estuary of the Dyfi. 
A wide sea of gorse is at out feet ; the river 
winds through the shallows beyond; and, 
bounding the valley and the view, rises the 
mighty wall of North Wales. 

This is on the left — a wide and splendid 
landscape; and meanwhile on the right 



150 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

are wild hills rising from the road, cleft 
here and there by narrow wooded gorges 
or tumbling mountain streams. At Ysgubor- 
y-coed the water dashes down between 
sharp rocks, and makes a lovely picture 
with the great mill-wheel and mossy-tiled 
building that stand beside it ; and just 
beyond Glan Dovey station we catch a 
momentary glimpse of the steep sides of 
the beautiful Llyfnant Valley. Thence four 
level miles bring us to Machynlleth. 

There is a charm about Machynlleth. Its 
wide central street is planted with trees. 
In most Welsh towns, History, though she 
has lived in them so long, has rather an 
uneasy air : tales of valour, or of treachery 
on a large scale, blend rather incongruously 
with prim grey houses and slate roofs. 
But in Machynlleth we are quite prepared 
to learn that these quaint and quiet streets 
— and some of the houses, even — are bound 
up very closely with the picturesque life 
of the last of the Welsh princes : so closely 
indeed, that Owen Glyndwr's royal seal 
figures in the arms of the town. In those 
low, whitewashed cottages he held his first 



THROUGH THE HEART OF WALES 151 

parliament ; and in that little corner-house 
in the next street he rested the uneasy- 
head that wore a crown for such a brief 
and troublous time. It is the oldest house 
in Wales, they say, but much renovation 
and a new chimney have destroyed any 
picturesqueness it ever had ; and it is now 
neither as venerable nor as interesting in 
appearance as the Old Mayor's House, a 
timber-and-plaster building at one end of 
the main street, with gables leaning in all 
directions. Neither do the whitewashed 
Houses of Parliament show any signs of 
their distinguished past — yet here Glyndwr 
accepted his crown and very nearly lost 
his life. For among the members of this 
his first parliament was one who was his 
enemy, and the sworn man of the House 
of Lancaster. Davy Gam, " the Crooked," 
a little red-haired, squinting man who, 
whatever he was, was no coward, came to 
this house with the intention of killing 
Glyndwr, but being betrayed, was thrown 
into prison for ten years, while his house 
near Brecon was burnt to ashes. Owen, 
with unusual forbearance, spared his life, 



152 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

perhaps in acknowledgment of the man's 
courage in coming among his enemies 
single-handed. He showed his courage more 
honourably at Agincourt. " There are enough 
to kill," he said of the French just before 
the battle, "enough to be taken prisoners, 
and enough to run away." He died on that 
field, and was knighted by Henry Y. as he 
lay dying. " He lived like a wolf and died 
like a lion," it has been said of him. 

Now, on leaving Machynlleth, supposing 
it to be our intention to go on to Dolgelley 
and so to Bala, we have a choice of roads. 
Ail the ways are so beautiful, however, 
that we can hardly go wrong ; but those 
who fix upon the shortest way, by Corris, 
should know that they will find it well 
worth while to run down the estuary to 
Aberdovey and back again. For this estuary 
of the Dyfi is second only to that of the 
Mawddach in beauty. 

Its best time, certainly, is in the summer, 
for the hills are thickly wooded ; but at 
all seasons there is a lovely view at every 
turn of the road. One of those that haunt 
the memory is from the point where the 



THROUGH THE HEART OF WALES 153 

road to Aberdovey, after passing through 
Pennal, comes again within sight of the 
river. In the foreground is a wide expanse 
of rich colouring, of red and brown, green 
and gold and russet ; beyond it shines a 
thin line of silver ; and beyond that again 
rise the hills of South Wales — not so im- 
posing by any means as that massive bul- 
wark of mountains that we saw from the 
other side and are now close under, but 
yet very beautiful in colour and bold in 
outline. As the estuary widens a succession 
of headlands stretch out before us, one be- 
yond another, and round these the road 
curves, sometimes very sharply. At the 
extreme mouth of the estuary lies Aber- 
dovey, in the shelter of the hills. 

The same eighteenth-century lady whom 
I quoted before describes a visit to " Aber- 
dove Seaport," as she calls it. " Down we 
set at the window," she says, "... to 
see the Sea hempty it self in to a Beautifull 
serpentine river, at the beginning of which 
lay ten ships at harbour." One cannot 
marvel that any one should sit down at a 
window to watch so strange a phenomenon 



154 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

as the sea emptying itself into a river. 
Unfortunately this interesting sight cannot 
now be promised to visitors at Aberdovey; 
but the '* beginning " of the river still owes 
much of its picturesque effect to the little 
quays that jut out into the stream, and the 
ships of considerable size that lie "at 
harbour." The best hotel, and it is an 
extremely nice one, is a short distance 
beyond the little town, and is perched on the 
hillside above the golf-links, facing the sea. 

It was somewhere in this estuary, prob- 
ably on the shore of the Traeth Maelgwyn, 
that a strange scene took place between 
thirteen and fourteen hundred years ago. 
Maelgwyn, that King of Gwynedd whose 
name recurs so often in the history of 
North Wales, that gigantic man of fitful 
valour and still more fitful piety, deter- 
mined to unite all the strength of the west 
under one ruler, the better to oppose the 
conquering Saxons. It was agreed that all 
the princes and knights who had any pre- 
tensions should meet together in the estuary 
of the Dyfi, the dividing-line between North 
and South Wales; that they should there 



THROUGH THE HEART OF WALES 155 

seat themselves on chairs upon the shore, 
and he who contrived to keep his seat the 
longest should be the king. Then Maelgwyn, 
having settled these preliminaries, had a 
wonderful chair made for himself of the 
wings of birds, waxed. As the tide rose 
the seats of the other princes were over- 
turned, but Maelgwyn's chair floated on the 
surface of the sea. So Maelgwyn became 
chief of all the princes of the west. 

From Aberdovey, as I said before, we 
may, if we choose, drive straight on round 
the coast by Towyn and Fairbourne, and up 
the southern side of the Barmouth estuary 
to Dolgelley. Or we may turn eastward at 
Towyn, and reach Dolgelley by way of 
Tal-y-Uyn. Or, thirdly, we may return to 
Machynlleth and drive thence to Dolgelley 
by Corris. 

No motorist should really rest satisfied 
till he has driven on all these roads, so 
beautiful are the three. Towyn, I believe, 
has charms for many, but on the surface 
it is singularly unattractive. It has a very 
ancient church, however, built in the twelfth 
century by Gruffyd ap Cynan, of whom it 



156 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

was said that he built so many that his 
country "glittered with whitewashed churches 
as the heavens are bright with stars." Near 
it are some extremely interesting old 
memorial stones ; but here, to all appear- 
ance, the interest of Towyn begins and 
ends. Beyond it there are some fine views 
of the hills as the road turns inland ; and 
again when it turns to the coast and, high 
on the side of the cliff, curves round into 
the Barmouth estuary, the effect is really 
fine. It must have been of this part of 
the road that a traveller once wrote : *' We 
ascended a precipice, frightful beyond de- 
scription, on one side of us was the highest 
ragget Rock I have seen, the stones to 
appearance lose, and look as if just droping 
on your heads, some of which have fell a 
few years ago. The Precipice down to the 
Mean (Main) Ocean not less than thirty 
yards, and us travlers not a yard from 
the side of it, where the waves dash and 
tide rores, till it made me tremble." Grand 
as these " ragget " cliffs are, however, the 
most beautiful part of this drive is in the 
Barmouth estuary, under the shadow of 




\-^^3p« 



THROUGH THE HEART OF WALES 157 

Cader Idris. But to many travellers in 
Wales this valley of the Mawddach is 
thoroughly familiar, and to them I heartily 
recommend the road by Corris. 

From Aberdovey one drives back to a 
point in the Dyfi Valley almost opposite to 
Machynlleth. The river Dulas, near the 
point where it joins the Dyfi, is spanned 
by a fine old bridge, whose arches have 
resounded to the tramp of Henry Tudor's 
followers, as he and they marched eastwards 
to fight for the crown ; and to the tramp 
of Cromwell's men as they marched west- 
wards to fight, if not for the crown, for 
everything that goes with it. It is at this 
point that we turn sharply to the left and 
follow the course of the Dulas. This opening 
of the valley of Corris is very lovely, for the 
river, which has all the impetuosity of a 
mountain stream, is overhung by splendid 
trees, and through their stems in the spring 
we may see the further bank, steep and 
mossy, and thickly jewelled with primroses. 
The whole of this narrow and wild valley, 
indeed, is full of beauty. The road rises 
gradually to a considerable height; then 



158 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

beyond Upper Corris, where the landscape 
is defaced, as so often in Wales, by enormous 
banks of slate, it drops down by some very 
steep gradients, amid fine mountain scenery, 
to the level of Tal-y-llyn. 

It is only the eastern extremity of the 
lake that we see, and this we leave behind 
us, turning at this point sharply to the 
right into a defile of extreme barrenness. 
This narrow gorge, with its towering sides 
reft and lacerated by landslips, its huge 
boulders poised as though about to fall, 
its grey slopes softened only here and there 
by patches of short grass, is the most 
utterly, the most desolately savage spot I 
have seen in Wales. As we leave it and 
emerge into more open country, we realise 
that those wild slopes were the foot of 
Cader Idris, for looking back we see the 
heavy grey shoulder of the mountain. Soon 
we reach Cross Foxes, and thence run 
down through beautiful woods on a de- 
lightful gradient to Dolgelley, with the 
purple hills of the Mawddach estuary show- 
ing in a long line above and behind the 
vivid green of the trees. 



THROUGH THE HEART OF WALES 159 

In Dolgelley, as we saw before, all the 
historical interest is concentrated on a 
lamp-shop. There is nothing to keep us 
there, unless we wish for a meal, or per- 
chance a bed, at the " Golden Lion," or unless 
we mean to use the place, as many do, as 
a centre for expeditions. But at present 
our concern is to turn towards the English 
frontier, and to reach it through Bala and 
Llanrhaiadr. 

For ten miles after we leave Dolgelley 
the road ascends, persistently but never 
steeply. The backward views of mountain, 
wood, and stream are unfailingly lovely 
on this road, as on all others that converge 
at Dolgelley; and no less attractive in its 
own way is the wilder scenery at the top 
of this hill, which is practically a pass. From 
the summit we descend to the shores of 
Bala Lake, and after driving for three 
miles close beside its waters we reach the 
little town. 

It is not an especially attractive place. 
The neighbourhood of the lake is of course 
pleasant, but the hotel — which, by the way, 
like many Welsh inns, contains some lovely 



160 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

old furniture — looks out over the street. 
The scenery of the lake is pretty rather 
than grand. 

Bala must have been more interesting, I 
think, in Pennant's day. It must certainly 
have presented an appearance all its own ; 
for he assures us that the entire popula- 
tion — men, women, and children — spent all 
their time in knitting stockings. They 
knitted in their doorways, they knitted as 
they walked about the streets, and on fine 
days they sat together on the tumulus 
at the end of the town, and knitted there. 
On Saturdays the fruit of all this industry 
was sold, to the value of four or five hundred 
pounds, in a special stocking-market. This 
must have been a sight worth seeing. 

We may still see the Tomen-y-Bala, the 
tumulus where the knitters used to sit and 
sun themselves, and where, very long ago, 
a little castle stood. The mound has been 
made very neat, with gravel paths and 
rhododendrons ; and by paying a small sum 
we may climb to its modest summit and 
give a thought to the Romans who made 
the tumulus, and the Britons who made the 



THROUGH THE HEART OF WALES 161 

castle, and the past generations who made 
stockings. 

Leaving Bala, we may follow the Dee to 
Corwen, and there join the great London 
and Holyhead road; and this is by far the 
simplest route we can choose. 

The route we should certainly not choose 
is the so-called road from Bala to Lake 
Vyrnwy, the reservoir of Liverpool. The 
scenery round this lake is very beautiful, 
it is true, and an excellent hotel stands 
high on the hillside above the water; and 
since there is no railway among these wild 
hills, this is one of the places that show the 
uses of the motor-car most strikingly. But 
Vyrnwy should be approached from Shrop- 
shire, by way of Llanfyllin. The road that 
connects it with Bala is a narrow, pre- 
cipitous pass, cut on the side of a slope 
that is at some points almost a precipice, 
unprotected by any kind of fence, sloping 
downwards on the outer side, and crossed 
at short intervals by natural water-channels 
It is a discouraging picture, and the reality 
is, to put it mildly, uncomfortable. 

As an alternative to the Corwen road we 
12 



162 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

may cross the Holy Dee at the very spot 
where the " wizard stream," as Milton calls 
it — that stream that had the gift of pro- 
phesying good or evil fortune to the cause 
of Wales — flows from the parent waters of 
Llyn Tegid or Bala Lake, and following a 
mountain road of many '* dangerous " hills, 
visit the waterfall at Llanrhaiadr before we 
pass into Shropshire. 

The fall is at a lonely spot about four 
miles beyond the village of Llanrhaiadr, 
which is itself a pretty place with a nice 
inn. The road that leads to Pistyll-y-Rhaiadr 
is little more than a lane, but one may drive 
up almost to the very foot of the fall. 
" Prodigious high," says the letter- writer I 
have so often quoted : " and seemingly the 
hend of the world." There is really some 
excuse for this dramatic statement. An 
abrupt mass of rock rises before us im- 
passably. On each side of it are pine- woods, 
climbing the craggy slopes. There is an air 
of finality about the place : it is " seemingly 
the hend of the world." 



A TOUR IN SOUTH WALES 



A TOUR IN SOUTH WALES 

TTIOR those whose affections are at all 
-*- equally divided between natural beauty 
and historical interest the map of South 
Wales presents a dilemma. The imperative 
thing is to avoid the once beautiful hills 
and valleys that are now scarred, and rent, 
and blackened with coal-dust ; and this may 
be done by taking either the moorland road 
above the mining country, or the level road 
below it near the sea. Now I, who know 
both these roads, assure you that in adopting 
either of these courses you will miss much. 
For if you choose the lower road, tempted 
by its excellence, you will miss some of the 
finest scenery in South Wales, which, though 
not to be compared with the North, is yet 
beautiful ; and if you choose the upper one 
you will miss the romance of Beaupre, and 
the very ancient memories of Llantwit 



166 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

Major, and you will, moreover, miss a good 
many miles of as fine a road as ever made an 
engine purr. There is only one way out of this 
dilemma, namely, to follow a zigzag course, 
from the sea to the hills, from the hills to the 
sea, and so enjoy the best of both roads. 

To avoid the mines we must aim very low ; 
at Cardiff or Caerphilly. And if we are 
approaching the Border from Monmouth or 
Hereford, or the Midlands, we shall probably, 
just before we reach the spreading outskirts 
of Newport, pass through a village with a 
great name. A dull, sleepy-looking village 
it is, standing in a commonplace landscape 
beside a very dirty stream, a place entirely 
without superficial attractions. But it is a 
name to conjure with. Caerleon-upon-Usk, 
the City of Legions ! Once it " abounded 
in wealth above all other cities, . . . and 
passing fair was the magnificence of the 
kingly palaces thereof." The gilded roofs of 
the Romans glittered here beside the Usk, 
and the great amphitheatre that may still 
be traced once echoed to the shouts of the 
second legion: towers and temples, baths 
and aqueducts and splendid buildings stood 



A TOUR IN SOUTH WALES 167 

where now a few poor houses keep alive 
the name of Caerleon. Round its shining 
palaces grew up a world of legend. We 
know all about the fine doings at Arthur's 
coronation here : how he and Guinevere were 
crowned in different churches, and how the 
music in both was " so transporting " that 
the congregations ran to and fro between 
one church and the other all day ; and how 
a banquet of great splendour followed, with 
Caius, the server, dressed in ermine, and 
Bedver, the butler, waiting with all kinds 
of cups, and hosts of noblemen handing the 
dishes ; and how, after the feast, the soldiers 
got up a sham fight to amuse the ladies, 
who sat on the town walls and "darted 
amorous glances in a sportive manner." And 
in the '* Mabinogion " we are given a more 
domestic picture of King Arthur at Caer- 
leon-upon-Usk : a picture of him in his 
palace dozing upon a seat of green rushes 
covered with flame-coloured satin, with a 
red satin cushion under his elbow, while 
Guinevere and her handmaidens sit at their 
needlework by the window, and a group of 
knights are drinking mead from a golden 



168 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

goblet. And at Caerleon, too, it was that 
Maxen Wledig, the truant Emperor of Rome, 
built one of three great castles for Helen, 
his wife. He had seen her first in a dream, 
and sought her by land and sea, and having 
found her he forgot his Empire and lived 
in Britain seven years. So they made them 
a new Emperor in Rome. 

" And this one wrote a letter of threat 
to Maxen. There was nought in the letter 
but only this, ' If thou comest, and if thou 
ever comest to Rome.' And even unto 
Caerleon came this letter to Maxen, and 
these tidings. Then sent he a letter to the 
man who styled himself Emperor in Rome. 
There was nought in that letter also but only 
this, ' If I come to Rome, and if I come.'" 

So, through the Middle Ages, the memory 
of the great days of Caerleon was preserved 
in legend. 

Long before we have finished dreaming of 
King Arthur and his red satin cushion the 
tram-lines of Newport force themselves upon 
our attention. Newport was so called, I 
believe, because it superseded Caerleon, the 
old port, of which Leland says : " Very great 



A TOUR IN SOUTH WALES 169 

shyppes might wel cum now to the town, 
as they did in the Romaynes tyme, but 
that Newport Bridge is a lette." 

Before leaving Newport any one who is 
likely to be hungry soon will do well to 
secure a meal, for though Cardiff is not 
far away the ruins of Caerphilly take some 
time to see, and the little town cannot be 
depended upon for food. And we must on 
no account miss seeing Caerphilly ; for this 
vast ruin covers more ground than any other 
in this island, and, moreover, has the special 
distinction of being a characteristically 
Edwardian castle of a date earlier than 
Edward's. It was chiefly the work of Gil- 
bert de Clare, the Red Earl of Gloucester, 
whose architect, unlike that great artist, 
Henry de Elfreton, thought little of beauty 
when he designed these mighty walls, but 
altogether of strength. "Waules of a 
wonderful thickness," says Leland ; and of 
a wonderful thickness they are, and of a 
wonderful tenacity too, seeing that one of 
the great bastions that were mined with 
gunpowder in the Civil War was only half 
ruined, and the other half has been leaning 



170 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

at a most surprising angle ever since. The 
history of the ruins is not at all in propor- 
tion to their size ; and, indeed, it is possible 
that their size and strength may have 
acted as a deterrent to the makers of 
history. There is a story that Edward II. 
took refuge here with the Despensers; but 
even these unyielding walls failed to give 
any real sense of security to that poor spirit 
and at the first word of his enemies' approach 
he hurried away, preferring to trust to dis- 
guise. He chose the inappropriate role of 
a farm labourer — this indolent, boudoir-King, 
who had never done a day's work in his 
life — and he failed signally to please his 
master, who was as anxious to be rid of 
him as his subjects were. It was soon 
after this that he was captured and led 
away to the horrors of Berkeley Castle. 

On the direct route from Caerphilly to 
Cardiff there rises such a precipitous hill that 
the longer way by Nantgarw is really the 
best; and unless Cardiff has some special 
attraction for us there is no need to thread 
our way through its modern streets and its 
maze of tram-lines. For the Cardiff of the 



A TOUR IN SOUTH WALES 171 

Romans, and of the Welsh princes of Mor- 
ganwg, and of the Norman barons, is al- 
together overpowered by the Cardiff of 
commerce; and though there is a fragment 
left of the castle that has sheltered so many- 
crowned heads at various times, the castle in 
which poor blind Robert of Normandy was a 
prisoner for twenty-eight years, yet even this 
is modernised and closed to the public. 

But in LlandafP, which is now practically a 
suburb of Cardiff, there are still signs of age : 
a picturesque green and restored cross, some 
pretty old houses, and the cathedral of the 
most ancient see in the island. For even 
when St. Teilo of the sixth century laid the 
foundation of the first cathedral the bishopric 
of Llandaff had been in existence for more 
than five hundred years. By the eleventh 
century Teilo's cathedral was past repair; 
and when the "business of the Cross was 
publicly proclaimed" here it was in a new 
building that the Archbishop celebrated mass 
— the same building, more or less, that stands 
down there in that curious hollow to-day. 
More or less : for the restorations of this 
greatly chastened cathedral have been many. 



172 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

and it has narrowly escaped suffering even 
more terrible things at the hands of its well- 
wishers. Jasper Tudor's beautiful and un- 
common west tower, for instance, was once 
threatened by an eighteenth-century bishop, 
a versatile soul who wrote a successful 
" Treatise on the Modes." He was evidently 
more capable of dealing with the modes than 
with ecclesiastical architecture, for we hear 
that he was seized with a longing to remove 
Jasper's tower and replace it with a rustic 
porch.* For once the poverty of the see was 
a fortunate circumstance, and saved the 
tower. But no doubt that same poverty 
injured the building greatly on many 
occasions ; for at one time the see was so 
cruelly robbed by the Crown that its brave 
and humorous bishop had himself presented 
to Henry VIII. as the Bishop of Aff. " I was 
the Bishop of Llandaff," he explained, "but 
lately the land has been removed." f 

The tombs of Llandaff Cathedral are of 

"^ " The Book of South Wales," by the Kev. S. Baring- 
Gould. 

f "The March and Borderland of Wales," by A. G. 
Bradley. 




BEAUPRE CASTLE. 



A TOUR IN SOUTH WALES 173 

great interest; and it is with real pleasure 
that one sees the new, for once, not unworthy 
to be beside the old. The recumbent figure 
of marble on the grave of Dean Vaughan is 
really beautiful. 

As we climb the long hill a mile or two 
beyond Llandaff, we see Cardiff stretched 
out below us, a forest of masts and tall 
chimneys — an impressive symbol in its way. 
Then, when we reach the level ground, we 
forget everything for a time but the sheer 
delight of moving on a perfect road — forget 
even the heights of Exmoor showing faintly 
across the water on the left, and on the right 
the wild hills of Glamorganshire rolling away 
into the distance. 

Now, at Cowbridge, it is necessary to come 
to a decision. If it should be too much for 
the resolution of an ardent motorist to leave 
this road, he may pursue his way to Neath 
without "lette," as Leland would say; but 
for all antiquarians, artists, and other lovers 
of romance and beauty, the finger-post points 
very resolutely to a detour by Beaupre, 
Llantwit, St. Donat's, and Ewenny. 

About two miles south of Cowbridge is 



174 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

Old Beaupr^ (Bewper). Do not climb the 
stile and walk across the fields, but drive on 
a hundred yards or so to the gate ; for this 
grass-grown, deserted avenue is the fitting 
approach to the spellbound house of the 
Bassetts, that strange mixture of splendour 
and squalor, with its delicate carvings and 
dainty Corinthian pillars and its air of utter 
desolation. We know very well as we look 
at it that fair faces once looked down through 
those Tudor windows, and gay satins swept 
between the classic columns of the doorway, 
and the walls echoed to music and singing 
and laughter, until the fatal day that an 
enchantment was laid upon the beautiful 
white doorway of the love-lorn Welshman 
who learnt his art in Italy, and upon the 
avenue that once led the Bassetts out to war 
and home to love, and upon every stone of 
the old castle, so that it became a farmhouse. 
And now the fluted pillars and carved friezes 
are green with moss and fringed with ferns, 
and the walls echo to nothing but the 
clucking of innumerable hens. 

Beaupre is not greatly visited. There is, 
indeed, nothing to see but that strange, 



A TOUR IN SOUTH WALES 175 

incongruous doorway and the ghosts that 
flutter round it ; but it is one of those 
eloquent, unforgettable places through which, 
for a moment, one seems to be actually in 
touch with the life that they have seen. 

At Llantwit Major the interest is of a very 
different kind. Here there is not very much 
to attract the artist, but to the antiquary 
and historian " the dwelling-place and home 
of the Blessed Illtyd" must surely be of the 
first importance. For it was here that the 
Breton saint, St. Iltutus, or Illtyd, founded 
a monastery and university that made a very 
deep mark upon the life of the sixth century ; 
for its professors educated not only all the 
princes of the west, but also every illustrious 
Welshman — bishop, saint, or scholar — of the 
day. It is not surprising that an institution 
of its size and brilliancy — for its 2,400 students 
filled four hundred houses — should have seized 
the imagination of early writers, and given 
rise to so much picturesque legend that it is 
hard to know the truth. Some say that 
St. David himself was taught by St. Illtyd, 
and that Gildas the historian, called the 
Wise, and Taliesin, the bard of the Radiant 



176 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

Brow, were also brought up here. Of Illtyd 
himself the tale is told that he was originally 
a soldier, but hearing the call, he forsook his 
profession and his wife for the life of a 
hermit ; and when his poor wife came to him, 
one day as he was working in the fields, he 
silently turned away from her, and stood 
so, with his back to her, till she left him in 
despair. This is a pathetic foundation for 
all the scholarship and saintliness of the 
sixth century in Wales, and one can only 
hope, for the sake of Illtyd's conscience when 
he was a comfortable professor, that it is 
untrue. Of all the four hundred houses and 
seven halls of his university not a stone is 
now left ; but in the church, which is itself 
very full of interest, there are some won- 
derful monuments, one of them being a 
memorial raised to St. Illtyd by one of his 
pupils, Samson, a saint himself. The head 
of the cross is gone, but on the shaft the 
beautiful Celtic designs are still clear and 
the words still legible to those who can 
read them — " Samson placed this cross for 
his soul." 

Just beyond Llantwit and nearer to the 



A TOUR IN SOUTH WALES 177 

Bristol Channel is St. Donat's, which, as 
Leland says, " stondith on a meane hille a 
quarter of a mile from the Severn Se." This 
castle, partly Norman and partly Tudor, has 
been inhabited ever since the Norman con- 
quest of Glamorgan ; and so, as " the parkes 
booth and the castell long to ... a gentil- 
man of very fair landes in that countery," we 
can see no more than a glimpse of towers 
above the trees. But we pass close to the 
churchyard, and there we may see the very 
beautiful and uninjured Celtic cross. 

From St. Donat's we may rejoin the main 
road at Bridgend ; but in this country, where 
good accommodation is not always to be 
found, it is well to know that there is a 
very nice modern hotel at Southerndown, 
with the Channel and the Exmoor ooast in 
front of it and the trees and Castle of Dun- 
raven near at hand. The actual building of 
Dunraven is new, but a castle has stood on 
the same spot for many generations, through 
many tragedies. In Henry VIII. 's reign the 
lord of Dunraven, Boteler, or Butler, lost all 
his children but one on the same day. He 
saw them die, perhaps, for the windows of 

13 



178 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

his castle looked out across the waters that 
drowned them. Only one girl was left, and 
through her Dunraven passed to the Vaug- 
hans, who do not always seem to have made 
a good use of its position. For in Tenby 
Church lies the dust of a certain Walter of 
that house, who figures darkly in one of 
those moral tales — one might almost call 
them tracts — of which one occasionally hears 
in actual life. In Walter's day, which was 
also the day of Queen Mary, these shores of 
Dunraven twinkled with treacherous lights, 
which lured unwary ships to the shore, caus- 
ing their complete destruction and the great 
enrichment of the lord of the manor. At 
last, after years of this villainy, he was 
waiting one night for the fruits of his 
labours, waiting while the doomed ship was 
shaken to pieces and the bodies of her crew 
were one by one washed ashore. The last 
body that came was that of his own sailor-son. 
Whether we approach Bridgend from 
Llantwit or from Southerndown, we shall 
see on our right the embattled tower of 
Ewenny among the trees. The restored 
conventual buildings of this very ancient 



A TOUR IN SOUTH WALES 179 

Benedictine Priory are now a private house, 
but by leaving the high-road we may pass 
the fortified gateway that once stood be- 
tween the monks and their enemies. There 
is no finer example, I believe, of a monastery 
that is also a castle, and no doubt it is 
partly owing to the strength of its defences 
that the Priory of Ewenny still stands in 
its original Norman austerity, not as a 
picturesque ruin, but as a parish church. 
With the exception of one or two Tudor 
windows, it is pure Norman throughout, 
very simple, very dignified ; and it is still 
divided, according to ancient custom, into 
two separate churches that were used re- 
spectively by the monastery and the parish 
at large. The founder, whose beautiful 
tomb is wonderfully well preserved, was 
Maurice de Londres, whose name we shall 
meet again in a less amiable connection at 
Kidwelly. A great deal has been done in 
the way of restoring and preserving Ewenny 
by its owners, the ancient lords of Coity, 
whose great castle lies in ruins a few miles 
away. The Norman marchers of their house, 
it is said, set out to win the lands of Coity 



180 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

by force of arms, but seeing the fair daughter 
of the Welshman who owned them, he was 
himself won, and never a blow was struck, 
for Coity became his by marriage. How 
much of this story is true I do not know, 
but it is certainly true that his descendants 
have lived within a few miles of the spot 
from that day to this. 

At Bridgend we rejoin the road that we 
left so reluctantly at Cowbridge, and soon, 
on the right, we pass the hills of Margam, 
at whose foot are the fragments of a famous 
Cistercian abbey, more celebrated, we are 
told, for its charitable deeds than any of 
that Order in Wales ; while on the left there 
stretch between us and the sea the dreary 
sands that long ago buried — " shokid and 
devourid" — the castle and lands of Kenfig. 
The hills, cleft here and there with deep 
wooded valleys, are every moment drawing 
nearer ; a strip of glittering sea appears be- 
yond the sands, and beyond that again are 
the Mumbles. For a little time the masts 
of Aberavon rise picturesquely on the sky- 
line, but they are too soon replaced by the 
chimneys of Briton Ferry. 



A TOUR IN SOUTH WALES 181 

It was here that the travellers of old days 
used to ford the river Neath. It was a 
dangerous ford, famous for its quicksands. 
Wherefore a certain twelfth-century bishop 
of St. David's, being of a prudent tempera- 
ment and desirous to cross, selected one of 
his minor clergy to ford the river before 
him, a " chaplain of those parts," who had 
lately incurred the bishop's displeasure, and 
had been suspended. The chaplain meekly 
consented ; took the bishop's best horse for 
the purpose ; crossed in safety, and forth- 
with rode away. And it was only when 
the bishop restored the cure that the chap- 
lain restored the horse. 

This pleasant little story, recalled by the 
name of the ugly smoky town of Briton 
Ferry, will help us through the dismal 
streets that lead to Neath. 

Neath itself is not an attractive town. 
Its abbey to Leland "semid the fairest 
abbay in al Wales." To-day it is perhaps 
the most pathetic. During its last and most 
splendid days a Welsh bard sang of it and 
of the monks who lived in it; sang of its 
towers and cloisters, and coloured windows 



182 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

and princely shields ; of its columns of blue 
marble and of the painted archangels on 
its roof. It was just at this time that it 
seemed to Leland so fair, that is to say 
just before Leland's employer, Henry VIII., 
silenced the "peaceful songs of praise" of 
its white monks for ever. Even now we 
can guess at its past splendour, for though 
the blue marble and the archangels are 
gone, the crypt still has its vaulted roof, 
and through the heavy ivy there are frag- 
ments visible of the gleaming white stone 
with which it was once faced. It stands, 
unspeakably desolate, on the low, squalid 
outskirts of the town, amid a waste of 
scrap-iron and nettles and rubbish ; but 
when Edward II. came to beg for a night's 
lodging under its roof, when Neath was 
little more than a village and a castle, and 
there were no shunting, shrieking trains 
between the abbey and the hills, this must 
indeed have seemed a beautiful refuge for 
a tired, hunted king. 

For close behind the abbey the hills begin 
to rise, and through them the river Neath 
cleaves its way to the sea in a valley that 



A TOUR IN SOUTH WALES 183 

will lead us, if we follow it, to extremely 
desirable things. Ultimately the road will 
lead us to Brecon, by no means to be 
despised in itself, but it is rather for the 
sake of the miles of moorland that lie 
between that we must here strike up into 
the hills in a way that may seem eccentric 
till we know what they are like. 

The Vale of Neath itself is famous for its 
lovely scenery, its woods and mountains and 
river. The road is practically level as far 
as Glyn -Neath, where, if the day is young, 
and the mood enterprising, we may, instead 
of keeping to our rightful road, diverge 
for a mile or so to Pont Neath Fechan. 
Thence the active-minded and able-bodied 
may visit a series of very pretty water- 
falls on the river Mellte. This entails a 
considerable walk of a rough kind, but it 
also gives one an excuse for exploring a 
little more of this lovely moorland country : 
for the best way to approach the falls is to 
drive up for two miles into the hills and 
so reach the river from above. 

But probably the most usual course is, 
at Glyn-Neath, to turn towards Hirwain. 



184 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

It is after this point that the really dis- 
tinctive features of this run become ap- 
parent, the features that make the road 
essentially one for motorists ; for no railway 
crosses these hills, and if there be strong- 
limbed bicyclists who do, they cannot often 
be women, I think. For the road that 
seems to the engine of a car to be merely 
gently undulating, is really climbing steadily 
upwards for miles. Gradually the scene 
becomes wilder and wilder, more and more 
desolate, till at last we are spinning over 
a moor as wide as the eye can see, on a 
road that winds visibly before us far away 
into the distance. Range beyond range, 
the hills completely encircle us : stern, bare 
hills with rugged outlines, and never a 
tree to soften them ; and in the foreground 
great sweeping curves covered with short 
grass and here and there a glowing patch 
of heather. Then, when the summit is 
reached, and Cardiff waterworks are passed, 
begins the descent of nine miles on a 
perfect surface, close under the shoulder 
of the Brecon Beacons. I think this gentle 
descent is one of the most perfect runs, 



A TOUR IN SOUTH WALES 185 

from a motoring point of view, that I have 
ever enjoyed ; and if, as is likely, there is a 
touch of evening softness over the great 
hills, few people will regret having forsaken 
their direct westward road for the sake 
of this drive. Close under the Beacons 
lies Brecon. 

A prodigious amount of fighting has 
raged round this peaceful-looking little 
town. It was not without bloodshed that 
Brychan the Irishman, in the fifth century, 
made this country his own with complete 
thoroughness, supplying it not only with 
a new name but with a new population 
(for he is said to have had forty-nine 
children) ; and Brecon was one of the many 
places that were attacked and overcome by 
the army of Alfred's warlike daughter 
Ethelfleda ; and truly there was no lack 
of fighting in the days of the Normans, the 
Neuf-Marche, and the de Braose. It was 
Bernard de Neuf-Marche, or Newmarch, 
who built the castle, once "very large, 
strong, and wele mainteynid," but now only 
a remnant, a bit of battlemented wall and 
a tower, which passed through many stormy 



186 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

experiences before it came to the strangest 
end to which, surely, a castle was ever 
brought. For it was the inhabitants of 
Brecon themselves who, feeling that they 
had figured sufficiently in the annals 
of their country, demolished their own 
castle. It was during the Civil War, and 
a siege seemed imminent. The simplest 
way of avoiding this was to remove the 
castle. 

Brecon might well be tired of fighting. 
Newmarch had fortified it well, with walls 
and gates and the "keepe of the castel 
very large and faire," but it required all 
its defences and more, for a border castle 
was never safe. From the family of New- 
march it passed to that of de Braose, and 
they lost it again, not by the sword but by 
the seditious spirit and shrewd tongue of a 
woman. Matilda de St. Valerie, the wife of 
William de Braose, " uttered reproachful 
language against King John," which though 
perfectly just, was rash. She lost not only 
her castle, but her husband and finally her 
life, for Brecon became Crown property; 
de Braose, after slaughtering the King's 




/' t'*.^^.^'^^ 



A TOUR IN SOUTH WALES 187 

garrison, fled to Ireland; and Matilda was 
starved to death in prison. 

If we spend a night in Brecon we may 
sit in the pretty garden of the hotel 
under the shadow of the last remaining 
wall of Newmarch's castle. Opposite us, 
filling almost the whole landscape, are the 
solemn Beacons ; just below us is the Usk 
and its picturesque bridge. 

We must cross that bridge to reach Car- 
marthen ; and following the course of the 
Usk, pass through Trecastle, where the 
scenery becomes strikingly beautiful as 
the road cleaves a narrow gorge and then 
runs gently down for miles between wooded 
hills. At Llandovery we enter the valley of 
the Towy. 

There is nothing to detain us at Llan- 
dovery ; but as the gay flowers of the 
Castle Inn catch our eye in passing we 
may remember that George Borrow once 
spent a night there ; and the remains of 
the castle hard by may perhaps call to 
mind the great chieftain Griffith ap Nicholas, 
who was lord of Dynevor and Kilgerran as 
well as of Llandovery and many another 



188 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

castle. He was also a Justice of the Peace, 
and a harbourer of thieves ; a protSge of 
the House of Lancaster who yet died in 
fighting for the house of York at Mor- 
timer's Cross : not a very conventional 
person, in short. 

We leave the fragments of his castle on 
our left, and, on a practically level road, 
follow the slow-flowing Towy through Llan- 
gadoch to Llandeilo. This pretty little place, 
where there is a really nice inn, was once 
dignified with the name of Llandeilo Vawr, 
or the Great ; probably because of its close 
proximity to the great castle of Dynevor. 
If we pause for a moment on the bridge 
that here crosses the Towy we shall see 
reflected in the river a thickly wooded bluff. 
Among these trees are the ruins of Dynevor, 
perhaps the most important stronghold of 
the princes of South Wales. It was in the 
ninth century that Roderic the Great built 
the first castle here, and from that day for- 
ward till Roderic's fortress had for many 
years been replaced by a Norman one, 
Dynevor passed from hand to hand, from 
Welsh to English and from English to 



A TOUR IN SOUTH WALES 189 

Welsh, and from one turbulent chieftain to 
another. It seems to have been regarded 
more or less as the key to South Wales ; 
for on one occasion Henry II. sent a special 
spy to inquire into the strength of Dynevor 
and the general character of the country- 
This artless knight asked his way of a Welsh 
dean, and was, as he might have expected, 
led by a route so wild, so rough, and so 
extremely circuitous that the castle seemed 
to be practically inaccessible. By way of 
heightening the effect this humorous divine 
paused at intervals to satisfy his hunger 
with handfuls of grass. It was the custom 
in that poor country, he said. The knight 
returned to Henry with the report that the 
country round Dynevor was " uninhabitable, 
vile, and inaccessible, only affording food to 
a beastly nation, living like brutes." 

Within a few miles of Dynevor there is 
another castle that looks as if it might well 
have been inaccessible — Cerrig Cennen. It 
is worth while to drive a few miles out of 
our way to see this circlet of towers on its 
pale grey crag, dominating the whole land- 
scape of rounded hills. It is best to approach 



190 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

it by Derwydd Station, partly because the 
more direct route leads over a long and 
precipitous hill, and partly because from 
this side one's first view of the old fortress 
is more striking. I think there is little to 
be gained by trying to drive close to the 
actual ruins : the impressive effect is in the 
distant outline of this strange and sudden 
crag, on which, it is said, a Knight of 
the Round Table built his fortress before 
the Norman of later days made it his 
stronghold. - 

From Llandeilo to Carmarthen we have 
a choice of roads. The upper one is per- 
haps slightly the faster of the two, but 
from the lower there is a better view of 
Dynevor, and Dryslwyn Castle, and Aber- 
gwili, the palace of the bishops of St. 
David's. In Carmarthen itself there are 
few relics left of a history that begins in 
the days of the Romans and has been 
stormy to a most unusual degree; so 
stormy, indeed, that one marvels the place 
exists at all. The wicked Vortigern, King 
of Britain in the fifth century, is said to 
have built a castle here, to defend himself 



A TOUR IN SOUTH WALES 191 

against a too persistent saint who was try- 
ing, quite in vain, to turn him from the 
many errors of his ways. He had first 
taken refuge at Rhayader, but, says Nennius 
the historian, "St. Germanus followed him 
with all the British clergy, and upon a rock 
prayed for his sins during 40 days and 
40 nights." So the worried King fled 
here to Carmarthen and built a castle in 
which to hide. But, says the story, "the 
saint as usual followed him there and with 
his clergy fasted and prayed . . . and on the 
third night a fire fell suddenly from heaven 
and totally burnt the castle." How many 
times since then Carmarthen has been burnt 
to the ground and besieged and plundered 
I do not know, but one or other of these 
incidents is casually recorded on nearly every 
page of the History of Wales. But Carmar- 
then, like hope, " springs eternal." Among 
the many who burnt it is Owen Glyndwr, 
who at the very time that the foolish legend 
describes him as sitting in a tree watching 
the Battle of Shrewsbury was really occupied, 
not only in destroying this town, but also, as 
though influenced by the reputed birthplace 



192 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

of Merlin, in having his fortune told by a 
soothsayer brought from Gower for the pur- 
pose. But though this brave fortune-teller 
prophesied evil things they were not fulfilled. 
Owen had still many successes before him, 
and his dealings with this ill-fated town of 
Carmarthen made a great sensation. There is 
an agitated letter still existing which the Arch- 
deacon of Hereford, the " lowly creature," as he 
signed himself, of Henry IV., wrote in " haste, 
great haste," to implore that King for help. 
"And note," he adds in a postscript, "on 
Friday last Kemerdyn town is taken and 
burnt, and the castle yielded . . . and slain 
of the town of Kemerdyn more than L per- 
sons. Written in right haste on Sunday ; 
and I cry your mercy and put me in your 
high grace that I write so shortly ; for by 
my troth that I owe to you, it is needful." 
The exciting efPect of Owen's presence, we 
see, was of somewhat wide radius. Yet even 
Owen could not suppress Carmarthen for 
more than a short time. Leland tells us of 
two " reparations done on the castel," and 
in his day, he says, it was "veri fair and 
doble waullid." Even now there is some of 



A TOUR IN SOUTH WALES 193 

it left, but unless we exceed the speed-limit 
and refuse to pay the fine we shall probably 
not see it, as it has been made into a 
prison. 

But even the modern streets that have 
risen from so many ashes are not without 
their own memories of the great. They 
were once lined with shouting, excited 
crowds, gathered from all the country 
round to see Nelson drive through the 
town : and through them passed the strange 
funeral procession of Richard Steele, who 
was carried by night, attended by twenty- 
five torch-bearers, to his grave in St. Peter's 
Church. Above it a modern brass has been 
placed of late years, but for long the grave 
was, at his own dying request, left nameless. 
" I shall be remembered by posterity," he 
said. There are other monuments worth 
seeing in St. Peter's Church : the tomb of 
Sir Rhys ap Thomas, to whose efforts 
Henry VII. owed much in his quest for 
the crown ; and a mural tablet of the seven- 
teenth century, to " virtuous Anne, the lady 
Vaughan," who was, we learn, "the choice 
elixir of mortalitie." 

U 



194 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

From Carmarthen we must certainly not 
neglect to visit Kidweli, ten miles away- 
near the sea, for there we shall find much 
of that visible romance that has, by storm 
and stress, been battered out of the county 
town. Kidweli once had walls, and three 
gates, and a priory of Black Monks, as well 
as the castle that still stands above the river 
Gwendraeth in all its imposing simplicity. 
The round towers and the curtain-wall and 
the great gateway have a very distinctly 
Edwardian character, but Caradoc of Llan- 
carvan says there was a castle built here 
quite at the end of the twelfth century by 
Rhys ap Griffith, that great prince of South 
Wales who is known in Welsh history as 
The Lord Rhys ; and even in those destruc- 
tive days a hundred years was a short time 
for a castle to last. Probably Rhys built it 
and Edward repaired it, giving it the special 
character of his own work, but not entirely 
wiping out the work of Rhys. In this way 
we may account for the name of Gwenllian's 
Tower, for Rhys had a much-loved daughter 
Gwenllian, " a woman of such incomparable 
beauty, and exceeding in all feminine quali- 



A TOUR IN SOUTH WALES 195 

fications, that she was accounted the fairest 
and best accomplished lady in all the country." 
She had fine traditions behind her, but they 
were not so much " feminine " as warlike ; 
for her father Rhys was " the protection of 
his country, the splendour of arms, the arm 
of power," and her great uncle was the valiant 
Owen Gwynedd, and her grandmother was 
that gallant lady after whom she was doubt- 
less named, Gwenllian the wife of Griffith. 
It was quite near Kidweli that this other 
Gwenllian died. In her husband's absence 
she led his men to battle against the Norman 
invader, Maurice de Londres, whose grave 
we saw in his priory-church of Ewenny. 
Her forces were defeated, and she herself, by 
order of de Londres, was beheaded there 
and then. Her brother Owen Gwynedd, how- 
ever, was still alive, and he saw to it that the 
reckoning was heavy. 

The road from Carmarthen to Tenby lies 
at first through rather dull country, but 
after a time passes between extremely 
pretty wooded hills. Presently we catch 
sight of the sea shining at the end of a 
deep valley, and after this a delightful run 



196 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

on a downward gradient carries us within 
sight of Tenby, the most charming of 
watering-places. Now, it is not altogether 
an artificial classification if we divide the 
civilised world into two parties : those who 
delight in watering-places and those who 
flee from them. For this taste or distaste 
is really, more or less, an indication of 
temperament, and at the end of half an 
hour one could usually guess correctly in 
which of the two classes to place a new 
acquaintance. But I really defy any one to 
dislike Tenby. There is something endear- 
ing about it. From the roadside the cliffs 
drop steeply to the sands below — very 
yellow sands sweeping in long curves to the 
edge of a brilliantly green sea, while beyond 
them the long headlands stretch one behind 
the other, mere blurs of purple or misty 
blue. On the right the remnant of the 
castle stands upon a rock, and below it 
there juts into the sea a picturesque little 
pier, entirely for use, and innocent of 
pavilion or bandstand. Here the innumer- 
able trawlers take shelter, till in the early 
morning they unfurl their crimson or brown 



A TOUR IN SOUTH WALES 197 

sails, and one by one glide out into the 
bay — a brave sight, and one that calls to 
mind the early name of this place, Dyn- 
bych-y-Pysgod, the Little Town of Fish. 

There is something almost incongruous in 
the thought of the many sieges that this 
quiet, sunny town has suffered. From very 
early days it played an active part in the 
history of this strange English corner of 
Wales, and if its walls and gateways are 
still standing to add to its beauty, this is 
not for want of use, but because their uses 
were so constant that they were kept in 
good order. Of the castle, indeed, little 
enough remains : a ruined tower, an arch- 
way, and a fragment of wall are all that is 
left on the rock that juts out so pic- 
turesquely into the green sea. 

But if the shrewd blows of several cen- 
turies have left us little of Tenby Castle, it 
is far otherwise with the splendid walls and 
towers of Manorbier, which stand close above 
the sea a few miles further along the same 
coast. To see Manorbier at its best one 
should approach it from the road called the 
Ridgeway, and this route, too, has the 



198 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

advantage of commanding, here and there, 
some very lovely views of the coast, of 
Lydstep and Caldey Island. It is well to 
know that on Sunday no strangers are 
admitted within the gate of Manorbier. 

It stands, as Leland says, betwixt two 
" hillettes, between the wich the Severn Se 
gulfith in" — a fine setting for its battle- 
mented walls and towers, the "turrets and 
bulwarks" of which Giraldus proudly speaks. 
That most delightful chronicler declares this 
to be the pleasantest spot in Wales, and 
then half apologises for his enthusiasm over 
this "his native soil, his genial territory." 
We may forgive him for his love of the 
place, even if we think he goes a little too 
far, for this Gerald de Berri the Norman, 
who oddly enough has been known to all 
who have come after him as Giraldus the 
Welshman, was born here at Manorbier ; 
and down there on the shore are the sands 
where he played as a child, building, we are 
told, not castles, but always churches and 
abbeys. 

Strange enough this belligerent-looking 
building seems to have no history. It has, 



A TOUR IN SOUTH WALES 199 

apparently, led an entirely domestic life. 
We hear of mills and ponds, of parks and 
dovecots in connection with it, hut of siege 
and bloodshed not a word. The great, grim 
walls and bastions, however, must have 
added greatly to the peace and comfort of 
the Norman barons who lived behind them, 
and they certainly add very much to our 
pleasure. 

Climbing again to the Ridgeway we turn 
to the left, with a view to seeing Lamphey, 
Pembroke, and the Stack Rocks before, 
following in the footsteps of many a 
pilgrim, we visit the shrine of St. David. 

Lamphey Palace was for several centuries 
one of the dwellings of the Bishop of St. 
David's ; and a good deal of it was built by 
Bishop Gower, whose " mason's mark," so to 
speak, is the arcaded parapet so conspicuous 
here and at his cathedral city. Bishop 
Gower seems to have been the benefactor 
of this see, as Bishop Barlow was its evil 
genius. It was owing to the latter that 
Lamphey passed to the Crown, and thence 
to the house of Devereux ; and so it came 
to pass that in this sequestered corner 



200 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

Robert, Earl of Essex, passed the early years 
of a life that was destined to be anything 
but sheltered, and played his childish games 
with no thought of a capricious queen or 
of Tower Hill. And with him, no doubt, 
played his sister Penelope, whom the pen of 
Sir Philip Sidney has made more familiar to 
us as " Stella." 

From Lamphey two miles of level road 
will take us to Pembroke, and to the castle 
that is perhaps the most impressive in all 
this land of relics, where the castles are so 
strangely thick upon the ground. The great 
walls rise upon a rock whose base is lapped 
by the waters of Milf ord Haven ; in the 
centre stands the mighty double keep, and 
round it is a ring of bastions ; on the town 
side is the entrance-gate, flanked by massive 
towers. There is something peculiarly im- 
posing about this gateway, whose implacable 
strength seems all the more uncompromising 
from its being unsoftened by ivy and very 
little discoloured by time, though its fine 
effect is, of course, cruelly marred by the 
lawn-tennis nets that seem so often to be 
regarded as pleasing and appropriate addi- 



A TOUR IN SOUTH WALES 201 

tions to mediaeval castles. Pembroke, unlike 
Manorbier, is full of history ; there has been 
no lack of sieges here. Even before the 
building of this castle there were stirring 
doings round this rock : fierce attacks and 
wily stratagems, not unmixed, some say, 
with romance. There was a " slender for- 
tress " here, built by Arnulph de Mont- 
gomery of stakes and turf — a poor defence 
one would have thought, but apparently 
sufficient to bear a good deal under the 
guardianship of that " worthy and discreet " 
constable, Gerald de Windsor, grandfather 
of our Giraldus. He showed his discretion 
on one occasion, when the stakes and turf 
were besieged by the Welsh, and his gar- 
rison was extremely short of food, by cutting 
up the last few beasts that remained to 
them, and throwing the pieces to the enemy. 
In our day this would be described, not as 
discretion, but as " bluff," and it was as 
successful as that quality so often is. It is 
said by some that it was this same Gerald 
who built the existing castle, but there 
seems to be a good deal of uncertainty on 
the subject ; and even more uncertainty as to 



202 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

which castle it was from which Gerald's 
wife Nest, who was less discreet, apparently, 
than her husband, was carried off by a 
Welsh prince, not without encouragement 
from the lady. But when one hears that 
the discreet Gerald escaped on this occasion 
by creeping down a drain-pipe, one feels 
that there was some excuse after all for 
Nest. But these are mere traditions. What 
is very certain is that one of the stern 
entrance - towers was the birthplace of 
Henry VII., who lived here with his mother 
through the early years of his life, and after 
his exile in Brittany landed only a few miles 
away at Dale, where he won the Welsh at 
once to his cause by unfurling the Red 
Dragon of Uther. When Leland was here 
he was shown the room in which Henry 
was born, and in it "a chymmeney new 
made with the armes and badges of King 
Henri the VII." ; but this fireplace must 
have vanished long ago, for even the local 
guide-books do not profess to know the 
room of Henry's birth. 

There was a memorable siege of Pem- 
broke in the Civil War — memorable not only 




ENTRANCE TOWER, PEMBROKE CASTLE. 




PEMBROKE COAST. 



A TOUR IN SOUTH WALES 203 

because of its importance, but because the 
leaders of the Royalist garrison were rene- 
gade Roundheads. Cromwell's guns were 
lying useless in the sand, for the ship that 
carried them had run aground; but un- 
dismayed he determined to starve the garri- 
son out. " Here is a very desperate enemy," 
he wrote to Fairfax, "who being put out of 
all hope of mercy, are resolved to endure 
to the uttermost extremity, being very 
many of them gentlemen of quality and 
thoroughly resolved." They yielded at last, 
and "Drunken Colonel Payer," as Carlyle 
calls the renegade, " full of brandy and 
Presbyterian texts of Scripture," being 
indeed out of all hope of mercy, was shot 
at Covent Garden. Beyond hope of mercy, 
too, was the traitor who, by betraying the 
source of the castle's water-supply to Crom- 
well, was the cause of the surrender. 
Cromwell, with characteristic promptitude, 
cut the drain-pipes and hanged his infor- 
mant on the spot ; and not many years ago 
some workmen found the broken pipes, and 
close beside them some human bones. 
About eight miles beyond Pembroke are 



204 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

the Stack Rocks. The road is hilly and the 
gates across it are exasperatingly numerous ; 
but these are but small discomforts, and 
the reward is very great. It is almost sud- 
denly that one finds oneself on the very 
edge of the stupendous cliffs that form the 
southern coast of Pembrokeshire — an edge 
that is almost mathematically a right angle, 
so sheer is the drop, so level is the plateau 
above. This stern, impregnable coast has the 
impressiveness that extreme simplicity on a 
large scale always has : it has the directness 
of Early Norman architecture. There is not 
an unnecessary line, so to speak, not the 
least attempt at ornament ; and the effect 
is to take away one's breath. A few yards 
from the cliff are the great pillars known as 
the Stack Rocks, obviously separated from 
the mainland by the patient efforts of the 
sea and air — examples of the survival of the 
fittest. Their tall, gaunt outlines, and the 
sea-gulls that circle round them, add much 
to this strange scene; but our real reward 
for opening all those gates lies, not in the 
actual Stack Rocks themselves, but in the 
long curves of the coast-line, the massive 



A TOUR IN SOUTH WALES 205 

cliffs, the green, transparent sea that swirls 
about their base. 

It is necessary to pass through Pembroke 
on the return journey, but we must leave it 
by the Carmarthen road, since to reach 
Haverfordwest we have to avoid all the 
long ramifications of Milford Haven. Soon 
we turn sharply to the left and enter the 
tiny village of Carew, where, close beside 
the roadway, stands one of the finest Celtic 
crosses in Wales, richly carved with one of 
those interlaced designs that the Welsh in 
very early days copied from the Irish. And 
not very far away is another of those 
splendid castles that were, to a Norman 
baron in Wales, among the bare necessities 
of life— the half Norman, half Tudor castle 
of Carew, or Caer-wy (the Fort on the 
Water), whence the pronunciation Carey, 
The east front, the entrance-gate and bas- 
tions are, I believe, the work of Gerard de 
Windsor, constable of Pembroke, and are 
plainly Edwardian in character ; but the 
north front, with its famous mullioned 
windows, was added by Sir Rhys ap Thomas, 
the energetic supporter of Henry VII., whose 



206 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

tomb we saw at Carmarthen ; while the 
eastern side, with the great banqueting-hall 
and the lovely arch that leads to it, was 
contributed by Sir John Perrot, of Eliza- 
bethan days. This Sir John Perrot was one 
of the worst of the Irish Lords Deputy, but 
it was not on this account, very certainly, 
that he was suddenly called away from his 
building operations at Carew and bestowed 
in the Tower of London. The builders, 
delivered from his vigilant eye, did their 
work so perfunctorily that it is now in a 
more dilapidated condition than the sturdy 
defences of the Norman part of the castle.* 
But perhaps the old splendour of Carew is 
represented and recalled best of all by the 
beautiful rooms on the northern side, whose 
thresholds have been trodden by so many 
mailed feet, so many dainty silken shoes ; 
for the hospitalities of Carew, at all events 
in the days of Sir Rhys ap Thomas, were 
carried out on a large scale. Henry of 
Richmond, not yet Henry of England, was 
entertained here on his way to Bosworth, 
and mounted the stairs to the room that 
^ Kev. S, Baring-Gould, " The Book of South Wales." 



A TOUR IN SOUTH WALES 207 

displays his arms upon a shield, only a 
little time before he mounted the steps of 
the throne. This last event was celebrated 
here in a magnificent pageant, a medley 
of feasts and tournaments and sermons, at 
which a thousand guests filled these weed- 
grown rooms with all the glitter and colour 
of an age that loved fine clothes. Sir Rhys 
himself figured on the occasion in "a fine 
gilt armour," and was attended by "two 
hundred tall men in blewe coats." The 
banqueting-hall on the east side was not 
then in existence, but there was never- 
theless " a goodlie spaciouse roome richlie 
hanged with clothe of arras and tapestrie " 
in which "the bettermost sort" were enter- 
tained, a cross table being laid at one end 
for the King who was so many miles away. 
And yet, in spite of these rash distinctions 
among the guests, we are assured by the 
chronicler that "one thing is noteworthy, 
that for the space of five dayes among a 
thousand people there was not one quarrell, 
crosse word, or unkind looke that happened 
betweene them." It seems almost unneces- 
sary that the bishop, before they parted, 



208 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

should have "bestowed a sermon upon 
them." 

Fifteen miles of a hilly road lie between 
Carew and Haverfordwest, a town that was 
important enough in Edward IV.'s day to 
be made a separate county. It was the 
chief town and stronghold of the Flemish 
colony, and the dominating position of the 
castle bears witness to its former useful- 
ness ; while its present mission as a gaol 
does nothing to detract from its grim 
appearance. 

It was outside the embattled walls of 
Haverfordwest that Glyndwr first met his 
French allies, who had landed in Milford 
Haven from their hundred and forty ships. 
There were four or five thousand of them, 
very gay in their apparel, very rich in their 
accoutrements, and here before the hill of 
Haverfordwest they must have been an 
encouraging sight for a man whose luck 
was beginning to turn. But this stern castle 
withstood them, none the less, and though 
they burnt the town, they were obliged to 
retire. In the Civil War the Royalist gar- 
rison adopted a simple plan for saving 




f^i^l- W; 




A TOUR IN SOUTH WALES 209 

themselves from the discomforts of a siege. 
Hearing that the enemy was approaching, 
it seemed to them that the best way to 
avoid unpleasantness would be to leave the 
place vacant, which they did with all possible 
despatch. 

There are a good many things that we may 
think of in this town: those "people brave 
and robust," as Giraldus calls the Flemings 
whom Henry I. established here ; poor 
Richard II., who gave them their charter; 
Edward IV., who gave them a high sheriff; 
the sieges of centuries ; the gay French 
army ; but I, when I climb the steep streets 
of Haverfordwest, long most of all to 
know the spot on which the Crusades were 
preached to " a people well versed in com- 
merce and woollen manufactories." " It 
appeared wonderful and miraculous," says 
the historian, with no consciousness that he 
is saying anything humorous, " that although 
the archdeacon addressed them both in the 
Latin and French tongues, those persons 
who understood neither of those languages 
were equally affected, and flocked in great 
numbers to the cross." 

15 



210 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

In the days when people journeyed to St. 
David's for the good of their souls it was con- 
sidered that two pilgrimages to that shrine 
secured as many spiritual advantages as one 
pilgrimage to Rome. It seems hard that 
those who now approach St. David's by 
train should not derive some solid benefit of 
this kind, for the penance must really be 
very great, since Haverfordwest is the 
nearest station, and the road between the 
two places is known as " sixteen miles and 
seventeen hills." One passes these sad 
pilgrims, packed very closely in hired 
wagonettes behind still sadder horses, and 
one hopes that good may accrue to their 
souls, since surely this must be very bad for 
their bodies. Even bicyclists, our brethren 
of the road, must find these seventeen hills 
no easy task. The pilgrimage to St. David's 
is pre-eminently one for motorists. 

The surface, on the whole, is good, and 
near the coast the scenery is fine. As the 
sea comes into sight on our left the rather 
dull, flat landscape to the right is enlivened 
by the curiously sudden crag on which stand 
the remains of Roche Castle, the birthplace 



A TOUR IN SOUTH WALES 211 

of Lucy Walters, the Duke of Monmouth's 
mother. After a time the road dips sud- 
denly to the shore at Newgale, where the 
sands stretch for two miles between low 
headlands, and where long ago the sea once 
receded and showed the blackened stumps 
of a huge submerged forest. Between this 
and St. David's are "divers other little 
creekittes," says Leland, who has a passion 
for diminutives of an original kind ; and of 
them all none is so charming as little Solva 
where the narrow creek runs up far into 
the land, and a picturesque village climbs 
the hill, and the " fischerbotes " take refuge 
now as they did in the sixteenth century, 
and probably long before it. 

A few minutes later appear the outskirts 
of the strangely squalid village that is the 
cathedral city of St. David's. The straggling, 
ugly street gives little promise of reward 
for our pilgrimage. Then suddenly we are 
at the edge of a hill, and we look down into 
the little dell that holds, perhaps, as much 
beauty and history and legend as any spot 
of its size in our country : the cathedral 
itself, very plain and built of a strange 



212 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

purple stone ; close beside it the ruins of 
St. Mary's College, founded by John of 
Gaunt and his wife ; and beyond it the far 
greater ruins of Bishop Gower's very beau- 
tiful palace, with its great rose-window and 
the arcaded parapet that characterises the 
bishop's buildings. And to the seeing eye 
this little hollow contains far more than 
these mere stones : it is filled with count- 
less memories of saints, and those who were 
anything but saints ; it is crossed by a long 
procession of pilgrims ; William I., who came 
to worship before St. David's shrine and in 
some sort apologise, as it were, for con- 
quering the country — an apology that was 
rather premature ; Edward I. and his faith- 
ful Eleanor, on the same errand, with more 
reason ; William Rufus, with little interest 
in saints or shrines ; Henry II., " habited like 
a pilgrim, and leaning on a staff," and met 
at the gate by a long and solemn proces- 
sion. Of all these, Edward was the only one 
who worshipped in this very building, for it 
is the fourth that has stood on this spot 
and was raised just after Henry II. 's visit. 
Much restoration has given it the look of 







ST. MARY S COLLEGE. ST. DAVID's. 







ST. DAVID S CATHEDRAL. INTERIOR. 



A TOUR IN SOUTH WALES 213 

a new building, as seen from the outside. 
Perhaps this is why, as one passes through 
the doorway, one is inclined to hold one's 
breath from sheer surprise ; for St. David's 
Cathedral is " all glorious within," and there 
is nothing outside to prepare one for the 
Norman arches with their varied and rich 
ornament, for the splendour of the fifteenth- 
century roof, and of the rood-screen that 
Gower built and is buried in. For nearly 
two hundred years the nave was covered 
with whitewash, and indeed it has narrowly 
escaped worse things at the hands of evil 
men, for Bishop Barlow, of whom we heard 
at Lamphey, and heard nothing good, was 
minded to strip the roof of its lead, and 
was only stopped in this enterprise by 
Henry VIII. It was this same bishop who 
stripped the roof of Gower's palace and so 
led to its decay; and being, it seems, a 
veritable esprit fort, he not only was the 
first Protestant bishop who took advantage 
of the permission to marry, but he also took 
advantage of the dissolution of nunneries 
and married an abbess. Their five daughters, 
it is said, all married bishops. Barlow posi- 



214 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

tively hated St. David's. Why, he asked, 
should money be spent on these ruinous 
buildings "to nourish clattering conventicles 
of barbarous rural persons " ? Why not move 
the see to Carmarthen, since St. David's was 
" in such a desolate angle, and in so rare a 
frequented place, except of vagabond pil- 
grims " ? The Saint himself was merely " an 
antique gargle of idolatry." In short, the lead 
of the roof was the only valuable thing here. 

Now Henry VIII., as we well know, had 
little enough respect for the shrines of the 
saints or for the beauties of architecture, 
but he had a great respect for the bones of 
his own grandfather — and these lay here. 
So Barlow had to hold his hand ; and we, as 
we stand in the presbytery of the cathedral 
beside Edmund Tudor's tomb, must remember 
all we owe to it. Nor is his the only notable 
tomb in this place ; for here is the simple 
shrine before which so many kings, such 
countless pilgrims, have knelt, and there is 
the recumbent figure that some say is the 
Lord Rhys, the son of the brave Gwenllian, 
the greatest of the princes of South Wales, 
of whom it was said that "his prowesse 



A TOUR IN SOUTH WALES 215 

passed his manners, his wytte passed his 
prowesse, his fayre speeche passed his wytte, 
his good thewes passed his fayre speeche." 
Of the grave of Giraldus we must not be 
too sure, for though it is pointed out to us 
there has been much discussion with regard 
to it. Yet somewhere in this cathedral his 
dust lies we know. 

Just beyond St. David's is the sea. And 
here too we must go, and, if possible, see 
the sun setting behind that western horizon 
where the hills of Holy Ireland are said to 
be sometimes visible. St. Patrick saw them, 
says the legend, as he sat on this shore, 
and vowed to give his life to the conversion 
of that land. He kept his vow ; but William 
Rufus, who stood here with very different 
intentions, was less successful. As he looked 
across the sea to Ireland, he said, " I will 
summon hither all the ships of my realm, 
and with them make a bridge to attack that 
country." His words were reported to Mur- 
chard, Prince of Leinster, who, says the 
story, paused awhile, and answered, "Did 
the King add to this mighty threat. If God 
please?" and being informed that he had 



216 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

made no mention of God in his speech, he 
replied, "I fear not his coming." 

The legend that connects St. Patrick with 
this shore is extremely circumstantial, but 
whether it has the least foundation in truth 
I do not know. In the Rosy Valley, says 
the story, he built a college, where he taught 
both boys and girls, and trained missionaries 
who afterwards became Irish saints. One of 
the girls was Non, the mother of St. David, 
and it was near Forth Clais that that saint 
was born. And when he was old enough 
the boy too became a pupil of St. Patrick; 
and so, when his college days at Llantwit 
were over, and he was made " Archbishop 
of Legions," because " his life was a perfect 
example of that goodness which by his 
doctrine he taught," he moved the see 
from Caerleon to Menevia for love of his 
master St. Patrick. In this way was fulfilled 
the prophesy of Merlin : " Menevia shall put on 
the pall of the City of Legions "; and from that 
time forward Menevia has been called after 
its first and most famous bishop, St. David. 

From this strange, remote land of dreams 
and legends and memories of early saints the 



A TOUR IN SOUTH WALES 217 

transition to the world of modern progress 
is rather sudden ; for only fifteen miles lie 
between the shrine of St. David and the new 
turbine steamers of Fishguard. We shall 
do well to choose the upper road, which 
runs for the most part through a bare, in- 
hospitable land that is far more suggestive 
of the remoteness of the village-city than 
the most dramatic mountain pass could be. 
Here and there we have a fine glimpse of 
the coast, and there is a sudden softening 
in the scenery as we draw near Goodwick. 
Here, at one side of the pretty bay of Fish- 
guard, are all the evidences of the new route 
to Ireland — the station, the hotel, and the 
steamers at the quay, while across the bay, 
beyond the long beach, the upper town of 
Fishguard appears above the headland. Here, 
at Fishguard, the French landed in 1797. 
Then, as they looked at those heights above 
the town, their hearts misgave them, for the 
hills were ominously streaked and patched 
with scarlet. It became plain to them that 
a very large force — a far larger force than 
they were prepared to meet — was waiting to 
descend upon them. And so it happened 



218 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

that their general, without loss of time, re- 
paired to the Royal Oak Inn, where he 
signed his capitulation to Lord Cawdor. I 
do not know when, if ever, he found out 
that the masses of scarlet figures on the 
hills were not soldiers, but the enterprising 
matrons and maids of all the county round, 
who had come out in the red cloaks that 
were then part of the national dress, to see 
what was going forward. 

The lower town of Fishguard lies in a 
cleft between two steep hills, and its pretty 
little harbour has all the picturesqueness 
that quays and boats and rippling green 
water can give. The further hill of the two, 
which we must climb, is of a most amazing 
gradient — computed in contour-books as 
averaging 1 in 7, but certainly 1 in 5 in 
places. From the high ground to which it leads 
us, lying between Fishguard and Newport, 
there are glimpses from time to time of fine 
coast scenery, and beyond Newport the road 
lies through very pretty country, under the 
conspicuous peak of Carningly. In the church- 
yard at Nevern there is a beautiful Celtic 
cross, the cross of St. Brynach, an Irish con- 



A TOUR IN SOUTH WALES 219 

temporary of St. David. From this point the 
road gradually rises to a considerable height, 
and then runs down a long hill to Cardigan. 

Cardigan, once " the lock and key of all 
Wales," gives us no hint of its former great- 
ness. It appears an uninteresting little town 
till one realises that it is the Aberteifi whose 
castle was taken and retaken, burnt, and 
shattered, and built again, through all the 
stormiest years of Welsh history; captured 
by the men of the north from the men 
of the south ; defended by both against 
the Anglo-Normans ; attacked by the Flem- 
ings ; at one time the court of Llewelyn, 
the greatest of the northern princes; and 
at another the court of Lord Rhys, the 
greatest of the southern princes. Here lived 
Griffith, the father of Rhys, "the light and 
the strength and the gentleness of the men 
of the south," whose brave wife, Gwenllian, 
was killed by Maurice de Londres ; and here 
he and Gwenllian's brother, the great Owen 
Gwynedd, avenged her, when Cardigan bridge 
broke under the retreating Normans, and 
"the salt green wave of Teivy was clogged" 
with the bodies of the slain. And here the 



220 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

Lord Rhys held his famous revels, which in- 
cluded one of those mediaeval Tournaments 
of Song with which Wagner has made us so 
familiar. The invitations were sent out in 
good time — a year and a day before the 
event — and many hundreds of English and 
Normans were bidden from " all Britain, 
Ireland, and the islands adjacent." The his- 
torian goes on to tell us how "Rhys caused 
all the bards or poets throughout all Wales 
to come thither ; and for a better diversion 
to the company he provided chairs to be set 
in the hall, in which the bards being seated, 
they were to answer each other in rhyme, 
and those tha^t acquitted themselves most 
handsomely and overcame the rest, were 
promised great rewards and rich presents." 
And the men of Gwynedd won the prize 
for poetry, but the men of the south were 
victorious in music. 

Such in the old days was Cardigan, where 
the tourist may pause for a mid-day chop 
or buy a picture postcard. 

Two miles above Cardigan, on a crag beside 
the Teify, are the ruined towers of Cilgerran, 
which have been very little concerned with 



A TOUR IN SOUTH WALES 221 

history, though they have stood here since 
the days of Henry I. Their striking position 
above the wooded banks of the river, how- 
ever, will repay us for a detour of a mile 
or two, and we can rejoin the main road 
at the beautiful bridge of Llechryd. Here, 
where the prevailing note of the landscape 
is peace, the gentle Teify, whose purling 
waters have so often run red, was once 
actually dammed — as on another occasion at 
Cardigan — by the bodies of the slain, when 
the princes of the south met the invading 
princes of Powys and overthrew them. 

From Llechryd we follow the Teify past 
Newcastle Emlyn ; and thence, if we like, we 
may cross the moors to Lampeter ; or, better 
still, we may go straight on through the 
Henllan woods to Llandyssil, a lovely little 
place where fishermen delight to dwell, and 
where in consequence there is a really charm- 
ing little hotel. And if, as may well happen, 
there is no room for us there, we can after 
all go on our way to Lampeter, for there also 
there is quite a nice hotel, though of course it 
lacks the charm of the country garden and the 
rushing Teify. The moorland road between 



222 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

Llandyssil and Lampeter is in its way unique, 
for on both sides of it the hills are covered 
with a thick, short growth of gorse, a carpet 
of gold spread almost smoothly for miles. 

At Lampeter there is nothing to detain 
us but the important business of consulting 
maps. For here is the parting of the ways. 
If our object is merely to reach the English 
border, our best way perhaps is to aim at 
Builth. To do this we must strike across 
the hills through lovely scenery ; past Pump- 
saint, where George Borrow awoke to hear 
the murmuring of the Cothi ; through Llan- 
dovery, where we have been before on the 
way to Carmarthen ; and thence over a really 
fine pass to Llanwrtyd Wells. If, on the 
other hand, we are aiming at North Wales 
our obvious course is to strike across to 
Aberaeron, and thence follow the coast to 
Aberystwith and Barmouth. And if — and 
this is the course I strongly recommend — 
we intend to complete the circle, and end 
our little tour by running down the Wye 
Valley, then too we should make for Aberyst- 
with, and, turning thence eastward, join the 
infant Wye on the slopes of Plynlimmon. 




THE WYE NEAR ITS SOURCE. 



THE VALLEY OF THE WYE 



THE VALLEY OF THE WYE 

npHOSE who have stout hearts and stout 
-■-- boots may, I believe, discover the actual 
source of the Wye among the rushes of 
Plynlimmon. Five miles of hard walking 
over rather dull downs will procure them 
the satisfaction of seeing the first gleams of 
the thin silver thread that is destined to 
grow into the most beautiful river of Eng- 
land. Most of us, however, will be content 
to meet the Wye for the first time when it 
is five miles old, so to speak, at the point 
where it touches the high-road from Aberyst- 
with to Newtown. Even here it is a tiny 
stream, rushing lightheartedly down the hill 
over the rocks, unsobered as yet by the 
dignified reflections of Hereford and Tintern 
and Chepstow Castle. 

These slopes of Plynlimmon are not par- 
ticularly inspiring, except when regarded as 

16 



226 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

the cradle of the Wye, and of that greater 
river whose tributary she is, the Severn. 
It is true that the standard of Wales, with 
its red dragon, once floated victoriously on 
the side of this hill, and the short grass has 
been dyed with the blood of the Flemings, 
who mustered here to chastise that stout 
rebel, Owen Glyndwr, and were thoroughly 
chastised by him instead. But in themselves 
the heights of Plynlimmon are a little un- 
interesting. Short grass and rushes are all 
that grow upon them, and though their 
rounded outlines have a dignity of their 
own, the lack of colour makes them rather 
desolate. It is not till the Wye has passed 
Llangurig that it begins to earn its fame. 

Curiously enough, the Wye's fame seems 
to depend mainly on its lower reaches. 
Nine people out of ten regard it as rising, so 
to speak, in Hereford ; the Upper Wye is 
unknown to them and considered of no 
account. Yet to those who know it the 
Upper Wye, with its rugged hills and its 
wealth of colours, has a stronger charm even 
than the wooded loveliness of Symond's Yat 
or of Tintern. 



THE VALLEY OF THE WYE 227 

At Llangurig — which is a wind-swept village 
with a nice little inn and a reputation for 
good fishing — the river and the road that 
follows it turn sharply to the right, and begin 
to descend by a very gentle gradient towards 
Rhayader. The landscape changes gradually. 
The hills lose their bleak desolation only to 
become cultivated and commonplace : then 
the fields yield to moorlands and the rounded 
curves to bold and jagged rocks ; and at last, 
near the spot where the river Marteg adds 
its waters to the Wye and the railway joins 
the road, the great hills rise on each side 
so precipitously that the way lies almost 
through a defile. The hilltops are bare and 
grey, but by the banks of the river is a belt 
of trees ; and as the valley widens the slopes 
are no longer bare but are glorious in purple 
and gold, in heather and gorse. And where 
the flaming sides of the Elan Valley converge 
with the valley of the Wye stands the tiny 
town of Rhayader. 

This is, I think, the gem of the Wye. It 
is well, therefore, if possible, to stay here for 
a day or two ; and fortunately there is a nice 
little hotel to stay in. There are hills near 



228 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

and far, and on every hill are all the colours 
of the rainbow, and with the passing of every 
cloud the colours move and change. Close 
at hand are slopes of bracken topped by 
rugged crags ; far away the hills of the Elan 
Valley are blue and amethyst. The river 
rushes through the town, giving to it its 
name of Rhayader Gwy, the Falls of the Wye, 
though the falls are not what they once 
were, I believe, before the bridge was built. 
Of course there is a castle-mound, for no 
Welsh town of a respectable age is complete 
without one. The castle itself has dis- 
appeared. The days of its life, indeed, appear 
to have been few and evil. It was built by 
"the Lord Rhys," the mightiest of all the 
princes of the south, but so strenuous was 
the life of his day that he was obliged to 
rebuild it a few years later. Afterwards he 
was for a short time imprisoned by his own 
sons, and it was while he was in this un- 
dignified position that his castle of Rhayader 
was seized by his enemies. But these dim 
memories have lately been eclipsed. Those 
who visit Rhayader to-day think little of the 
valorous and potent prince of ancient Wales ; 



THE VALLEY OF THE WYE 229 

they think almost exclusively of the Birming- 
ham Waterworks. We may forgive them for 
this, for the Birmingham Waterworks are 
more romantic than one would expect — 
romantic not merely as all great engineering- 
works must be, with the romance of enter- 
prise and achievement, but also romantically 
beautiful. One may drive for miles beside 
the lakes that wind into the heart of the 
mountains, and would have so natural an 
air if it were not for their mighty dams of 
Caban, and Pen-y-Garreg, and Craig Goch. 
It is a drive worth taking, for the road is 
good, the mountains tower above it with 
real grandeur, and the waters have pathos 
as well as beauty. The legend of buried 
houses and churches is common to many 
lakes ; but in the case of the lakes of Cwm 
Elan it is no legend, but a fact, that their 
waters flow over the ground where genera- 
tions of men have lived and worked, have 
ploughed their fields and said their prayers. 
The affairs of most of them are forgotten 
as completely as their houses are buried, 
but there is one memory here that no waters 
can hide — whether of Cwm Elan or of the 



230 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

chilly Serpentine or of the blue Mediterranean 
— the memory of Percy and Harriet Shelley. 
They lived here once, young and happy, and 
would have thought it a wild prophecy indeed 
if it had been foretold to them that not 
only they themselves, but even their quiet 
homestead among the green fields, would be 
destroyed by water. 

From Rhayader to Newbridge the road 
still closely follows the river, which, as we 
watch it mile by mile, gradually becomes 
wider and calmer. For the first few miles 
the banks are wild enough, and very beau- 
tiful ; then suddenly the river is hidden from 
us by the deep shades and countless stems 
of Doldowlod Woods, where James Watt 
once lived ; and by the time we dart out 
into the sunlight again we are nearing New- 
bridge. On this road there is nothing to 
limit our speed except the law, for from end 
to end of the Wye the surface is good, and 
there are no hills that deserve the name. 
At Newbridge we leave the river for a few 
miles, but join it again near Builth, and 
cross it to enter that town. 

Builth is unattractive. It professes to be 



THE VALLEY OF THE WYE 231 

a Spa, but I never heard of any one who 
drank the waters ; and it is hardly likely to 
become popular, since all the charms of 
Llanwrtyd Wells are but thirteen miles away 
on the one side, and all the fashion of Llan- 
drindod only seven miles away on the other 
Llanwrtyd is a delightful little place, with 
a good hotel and lovely surroundings, unspoilt 
as yet by popularity ; while Llandrindod, as 
every one knows, is beloved by so many that 
it is no longer very lovable. Builth has little 
to offer in rivalry of these, and indeed makes 
small show of hospitality, maintaining in this 
matter the character it earned long ago, 
when it refused to admit its fugitive prince, 
the last Llewelyn. It is only a little way 
from here to the dell whither he struggled 
through the snow from this his treacherous 
town, only to find fresh treachery, and to 
die through its means. His dust lies, they 
say, at the spot called Cefn-y-Bedd, or the 
Bank of the Grave ; and here in quite recent 
times a monument of stone has been set up. 
It stands close to the wayside on the road 
from Builth to Llanwrtyd. 

This, however, is not our road, which 



232 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

follows the Wye very closely for a time ; 
through Erwood, where from the top of a 
slight rise we have a wide and beautiful 
view ; past Llyswen and the " Three Cocks," 
one of the most famous of fishing inns, and 
through Glasbury to Hay. We are now in 
a broad and fertile valley ; the hills are 
wooded ; the river is growing slow and 
stately in its demeanour. The whole aspect 
of the country has changed, for at Hay we 
shall leave all the wildness of Wales behind 
us, and shall enter the quiet, homely county 
of Hereford. 

" I cam in crepusculo to the Hay," says 
Leland, and he chose his time wisely. 

Hay, or La Haie, as it was originally called, 
was once the meeting-ground of all those 
turbulent mediaeval passions that flourished 
so exceedingly on the border. For this 
reason it is full of ghosts. From this, the 
Welsh side, it has rather an undistinguished 
air, but when first seen by twilight from the 
English side, with the Black Mountains 
lowering behind it, and the remains of its 
grim castle dominating it, little Hay seizes 
the imagination. For those who approach 



THE VALLEY OF THE WYE 233 

it thus in crepusculo, like Leland, the past 
for ever lives in its commonplace streets 
more insistently than the present ; lives above 
all in its castle — " the which sumetime hath 
bene right stately " — the castle with the long, 
picturesque flight of steps,' and the longer 
and still more picturesque history. Through 
that great doorway many feet have passed 
that never came out, for those that entered 
the castle of Hay did it at their peril. The 
greater part of the building as it now stands 
is of Tudor date, but the entrance has by 
some means survived since King John's time, 
and this in spite of difficulties : for the place 
was plundered during the Border Wars, 
destroyed by the Welsh themselves in self- 
defence, rebuilt by Henry III., captured by 
Llewelyn, retaken by Prince Edward, cap- 
tured once more by Llewelyn's grandson, and 
finally suffered the general fate of Welsh 
castles. "Now being almost totally decay'd," 
says Camden, " it complains of the outrages 
of that profligate Rebel, Owen Glyn Dowrdwy, 
who in his March through these Countries 
consumed it with fire." 
This last disaster may account for the 



234 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

entirely modern appearance of the houses ; 
but there is nothing, no slate roof, no shop- 
window full of cheap blouses, that can make 
one forget the haunting presence of those 
that walk unseen in Hay — the undying ghosts 
of a hundred battles, murders, and sudden 
deaths. 

Soon after leaving Hay we pass the 
remains of Clifford Castle. Here was born 
Jane de Clifford, destined to be so fair that 
men would call her the Rose of the World ; 
and here no doubt she played her childish 
games on the banks of the Wye, with no 
disturbing visions of that harder game which 
she was to play later on and finally to lose. 
The story of the avenging poison-cup is 
untrue, we are told : it was in the nunnery 
of Godstow that Fair Rosamund died, and 
was buried beneath the cruellest epitaph, 
surely, that was ever graven on a tomb. 

Two miles beyond Clifford is the toll-bridge 
of Whitney, and this we cross with a pretty 
view of the river on each side of us. Our 
way lies through Letton, past the turn to 
Monnington — which claims to be the burial- 
place of Owen Glyndwr — and through Bridge 





CONFLUENCE OF THE WYE AND THE MARTEG NEAR RHAYADER. 



THE VALLEY OF THE WYE 235 

SoUars to Hereford. The landscape all the 
way is characteristic of the country: a scene 
of quiet fields and gentle river, of thatched 
cottages and gay gardens. It is not exciting, 
but it is extremely pleasant. Characteristic 
as it is, however, it does not represent 
Herefordshire at its best. The hills above 
Ledbury, the hop-gardens round Leominster, 
the woods and the wide views near Richard's 
Castle, are all more distinctive and more 
beautiful than this part of the Wye Valley. 
Indeed, if we were not at this moment 
pledged to follow the Wye we should do 
well to drive from Hay to Hereford by way 
of the Golden Valley, though the journey 
is considerably longer and the road by no 
means so good. This valley was originally 
named by the British, from the river that 
runs through it, the Valley of the Dore, or of 
the Water, for water is in Welsh dwr. The 
Normans, jumping to conclusions, translated 
this into Vol d'Or, and so it became the 
Golden Valley; "which name," says Camden, 
" It may well be thought to deserve, for its 
golden, rich, and pleasant fertility." 

But it is improbable that either the fertility 



236 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

of the " Gilden Yale " or the remains of 
Abbeydore Monastery will tempt a motorist 
to leave the splendid road that will lead him 
into Hereford by Letton, and Bridge SoUars, 
and the White Cross that was set up in the 
fourteenth century when the plague was 
raging in Hereford, to mark the spot where 
the infection ceased, and where, in conse- 
quence, it was safe to hold a market. Here, 
on the left, lies the suburb of Widemarsh 
and beyond it the Racecourse, where the pro- 
mising youth who was afterwards Edward I. 
showed at an early age that genius for 
extremely practical jokes that he used at 
the expense of the Welsh later on. He was 
the prisoner of Simon de Montfort on this 
occasion, and was taking a ride with a 
certain number of attendants. He guilelessly 
suggested that his guards should ride races 
among themselves, while he amused himself 
by looking on ; then, when their horses were 
tired, he upon his fresh one galloped off to 
Dinmore Hill, where the Mortimers of Wig- 
more were waiting for him. This incident 
took place in Widemarsh ; and in Widemarsh 
too is a relic that is worth seeking out before 



THE VALLEY OF THE WYE 237 

we drive into the heart of the town — the 
preaching-cross of the Dominicans, which, 
with the ruins of a thirteenth-century 
monastery, stands among the cabbages of 
the Coningsby Hospital. The latter is an 
Elizabethan foundation, and with the red 
coats of its pensioners is in itself a pic- 
turesque object in a town that is not very 
rich in visible memorials of its great history. 
We may look in vain for the castle that 
was, according to Leland, the largest and 
strongest in all England ; the castle that 
was repaired by King Harold and was once 
so splendid with its ten wall-towers and great 
keep ; where Ranulph of Normandy stayed, 
and Tostig, and King John, where John of 
Gaunt was governor, were Simon de Mont- 
fort imprisoned Prince Edward after the 
Battle of Lewes, where Isabella proclaimed 
her son Edward III. Protector of England, 
and where Owen Tudor was a prisoner. As 
it suffered no less than three sieges during 
the Civil War, and when they were over its 
remains were sold for £85, we need not be 
surprised that the castle is now represented 
by a public garden, where the youthful 



238 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

citizens of Hereford may play leap-frog over 
the spot where kings have feasted and made 
history. And not only has the castle dis- 
appeared, but even of the old houses there 
are very few remaining, as may be judged 
by the name of the fine one that stands in 
the principal street of the town. In Chester, 
Worcester, or Shrewsbury, "The Old House" 
would not be a very distinguishing name ! 

The chief point of interest in Hereford is, 
of course, the Cathedral, with its long and 
somewhat confusing history. An endless 
number of people have had a hand in the 
building of it, apparently, from the days 
when Offa of Mercia enriched the shrine of 
his murdered guest, Ethelbert of East Anglia, 
till the quite recent and rather unfortunate 
day when the west front was finished. The 
consequence of this diversity of builders is 
that Hereford Cathedral, with its austere 
Norman south transept, its Early English 
Lady-Chapel, its Decorated south choir- 
transept, and its Perpendicular cloister, is 
a complete Guide of Architecture. 

It was as the shrine of St. Ethelbert that it 
first became important. There is a good deal 



THE VALLEY OF THE WYE 239 

of disagreement on the subject of Ethelbert's 
death. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, for in- 
stance, says tout court that in 792 Offa com- 
manded the head of King Ethelbert to be 
cut off; whereas Matthew of Westminster 
gives quite a different version of the affair, 
completely exonerating Offa, "that most 
noble and most illustrious and most high- 
born king." It was Offa's queen, Quendritha, 
he says, who caused a peculiarly comfortable 
armchair to be placed in the bedroom of her 
visitor the King of East Anglia, and beneath 
it "a deep hole to be dug" — with very un- 
pleasant consequences for the visitor. When 
the horrified Offa heard of Ethelbert's fate 
he shut himself up and refused food. " But," 
adds Matthew, "although he was quite inno- 
cent of all participation in the King's death, 
he nevertheless sent a powerful expedition 
and annexed the Kingdom of the East Angles 
to his own dominions." 

The murdered guest, whoever his murderer, 
was first buried at the spot still called St. 
Ethelbert's Well, and afterwards in Hereford 
Cathedral, to its great enrichment. 

There are several roads from Hereford to 



240 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

Ross, none of which follow the river closely. 
The most commonly used — being the least 
hilly — is by Bridstow and Much Birch. Be- 
tween this road and the Wye are still to be 
seen traces of the College of Llanfrother, 
founded by Dubritius, that great Archbishop 
of Caerleon who preached so movingly at 
King Arthur's coronation and then resigned 
his see to the still greater St. David. On the 
other side of the Wye is a shorter, but after 
the first five or six miles a more hilly route, 
with some fine backward views and some 
glimpses of the river. The surface of this 
road is all that can be desired, and the hills 
are by no means formidable; but as one 
approaches Ross the country is rather unin- 
teresting. 

Ross itself may be regarded as a monument 
to one John Kyrle. 

" Bise, honest muse, and sing the Man of Boss ! [cries 
Pope] 
Whose causeway paves the vale with shady rows ? 
Whose seats the weary traveller repose? 
Who taught that heaven- directed spire to rise? 
' The Man of Boss,' each Usping babe replies." 

The lisping babe, however, is making a mis- 



THE VALLEY OF THE WYE 241 

take, for the Man of Ross only taught the spire 
to rise forty-seven feet ; and, moreover, it has 
been destroyed by lightning and rebuilt since 
his day (which was a very long day, lasting 
from 1637 to 1724). "A small exaggeration 
you must allow me as a poet," said Pope. 
But the fame of John Kyrle does not depend 
upon the spire alone, for he did much to 
improve the town, and did it, too, on a very 
small income. " He was a very humble, good- 
natured man ... of little or no literature," 
an eighteenth-century diarist says of him. 
"His estate was £500 per ann., and no 
more, with which he did wonders." It was 
not, however, by means of this modest estate 
alone that he won his lasting fame as a 
philanthropist, but also by untiring energy 
and skill in the art of beggary, and the 
judicious use of other men's money. In the 
case of the church bell it was his own money 
that he used, and his own silver goblet also. 
While the bell was in process of casting he 
drank to Church and King, and then flung 
the goblet into the molten metal — that after 
serving for the sacred toast it might be for 
ever consecrated to sacred uses. This incident 

17 



242 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

adds a touch of the picturesque to the sterling 
qualities of the benevolent old gentleman to 
whom Ross owes its public walks, and the 
Prospect that quaint Gilpin of the eighteenth 
century described as " an amusing view." 
Ross repays him by keeping his name green. 
It also — not entirely without difficulty — keeps 
green the two elm-suckers that long ago 
forced their way beneath the wall of the 
church and rose (being elms of Ross) in the 
pew of John Kyrle. They have been dead 
for some time, but they are still draped care- 
fully with foliage to keep up the illusion. 
The church itself is fairly old, and has some 
interesting monuments, including an ugly one 
tardily raised to the memory of the Man of 
Ross. 

In the town the most cherished relics are, 
of course, Kyrle's house and the carved mono- 
gram he is supposed to have placed on the 
outer wall of the Market Hall. The letters 
"F.C." are interlaced with a heart, and are 
said to represent the words, ''Faithful to 
Charles in heart" for Kyrle was devoted to 
the Stuarts. Charles I. himself slept once in 
this town, and other kings have visited it, 



THE VALLEY OF THE WYE 243 

but none has distinguished himself here save 
George IV. The Mayor of Ross sallied forth 
to meet him, as mayors use, wreathed in 
smiles and primed with speeches. By way 
of response to all this loyalty and eloquence, 
however, "the first gentleman in Europe" 
merely pulled down the blinds of the car- 
riage ! History does not record the mayor's 
next proceeding. The position strikes one as 
difficult. 

Close to Ross and on our way to Monmouth 
is Wilton, which is reached by a beautiful and 
ancient bridge of six arches, whence there is 
a good view of Ross, clustered prettily on its 
hill and surmounted by its heaven-directed 
spire. Part of this bridge was broken down 
during the Civil War to prevent Cromwell's 
army from reaching Hereford. The castle, 
too, fell into the hands of the Royalists, 
though its owner had carefully refrained 
from supporting either side, with the result 
that he offended both. The ruins now enclose 
a private garden and are fairly picturesque 
though they hardly compensate for an inter- 
rupted run. Within these walls, of which so 
very little is left, the poet Spenser was once 



2M MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

entertained in the days of the Greys. Later 
on the castle was owned by the family of 
Brydges, one of whom, when he was Deputy- 
Lieutenant of the Tower, was the means, 
either deliberately or from mere procrastina- 
tion, of securing for England one of the most 
glorious reigns in her history. The warrant 
for the execution of Princess Elizabeth 
reached the Tower, but Charles Brydges 
delayed to carry it out. While he was 
waiting Queen Mary died. 

From Wilton to Monmouth the scenery 
grows in beauty. At Goodrich Cross we 
should turn sharply to the left to visit the 
castle, and this is a matter that will take 
some time. For in the first place the castle 
is at some distance from the road, and in the 
second place there is much to see, and much, 
too, to hear. Yet there is little history con- 
nected with Goodrich, considering its age and 
dignity, and the great names of Pembroke 
and Talbot that are bound up with it. Its 
name, apparently is a corruption of Godric, 
who built a fort here before the Conquest, 
though the oldest part of the present ruin 
is said to date from the twelfth century. In 



THE VALLEY OF THE WYE 245 

the Civil War it endured two sieges, and it 
was after the second one, which lasted for five 
months, that the Parliament dismantled it. 
Except on this one dramatic occasion, Good- 
rich figured little in public life. It is the 
antiquary rather than the historian who will 
find it of absorbing interest, for the arches 
and Norman ornaments of the keep date from 
Stephen's reign, and many styles of architec- 
ture are represented in the various galleries, 
sallyports, and towers, which have been 
gradually added by the successive owners of 
the castle. Greatest of these was Talbot, first 
Earl of Shrewsbury and hero of forty fights, 
" a valiant man, of an invincible, unconquered 
spirit." He is said to have added a room to 
the keep, whence he must often have seen, 
as we may see, the Malvern Hills and the 
Welsh mountains in the distance, with 
Symond's Yat and the Kymin nearer at 
hand. 

Below Goodrich is Huntsham Ferry, which 
Henry IV. was in the act of crossing when 
he heard of the birth of his son, afterwards 
Henry V. So great was his excitement on 
this occasion that he impulsively presented 



246 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

the ferry and its profits to the ferryman, 
whose heirs held this possession for genera- 
tions. 

About three miles from Goodrich we have 
to climb a short hill with a gradient of 
1 in 10 ; the steepest, I think, on this Wye 
Valley road. From the top of it we run 
down on an easy slope past the wall of 
Wyaston Leys and through the woods be- 
hind the Little Doward, with a beautiful 
view — unfortunately visible only in glimpses — 
of the winding river as it bends away towards 
Symond's Yat. At the foot of the hill we 
enter Monmouth. 

Now Monmouth, or some spot quite near 
it, is without doubt the best motoring centre 
on the Wye. The town itself is not so 
pleasant to stay in as Ross or Tintern, where 
there are hotels in pretty positions with nice 
gardens ; but to the motorist this is less 
important than to others, since he will 
probably spend the day on the road. The 
important thing is to have a variety of 
interesting roads upon which to spend it. 
From Monmouth, one may drive up the Wye 
to Goodrich, Hereford, and Hay; or down 



THE VALLEY OF THE WYE 247 

the Wye to Tintern and Chepstow; or 
through the Forest of Dean on the further 
side of the river; or to Raglan, eight miles 
away, and on to Abergavenny ; or past Aber- 
gavenny and the Holy Mountain into the 
wild Yale of Ewyas to far Llanthony. 

"I'll tell you, there is goot men porn at 
Monmouth," says Fluellen, thinking of his 
king; and it is of Harry of Monmouth that 
we too think as we wake the echoes of his 
birthplace with our horn — those echoes that 
have so often answered to the "tucket" of 
John of Gaunt and of many another. Some 
say that it was John of Gaunt who built 
the castle in which his grandson was born, 
but whether this be the case or not there was 
a castle on this spot long before his day, 
though little seems to be known of it. The 
probability is that John of Gaunt improved 
and repaired the castle that was already 
there. The existing building has had an 
unusually chequered career even for a castle, 
having been in turn a palace, a pig-stye, an 
assize court, and a barrack. Even in James 
I.'s time it was said " that his Majestie hath 
one ancient castell, called Monmouth Castell 



248 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

. . . which is nowe and hath been for a long 
time ruinous and in decaye, but by whom 
it hath byn decayed wee knowe not, nor 
to what value, in regarde it was before our 
rememberment." " Harry's Window," but 
little else, survives as a shrine to the king 
whose name is still " a name to conjure 
with." His statue stands on the town-hall, 
but the bells of St. Mary's are the best 
memorial of Prince Hal, though their story 
is more characteristic of the rollicking school- 
boy of Shakespeare than of the wise and 
soldierly monarch of history. Time was 
when these bells rang out over the town 
of Calais. They were doing so when Harry 
of Monmouth heard them first, and were, in 
point of fact, celebrating his departure from 
the shores of France with so much joyous- 
ness that the demonstration seemed to him 
to be carried too far. He vowed that they 
should ring no more insolent peals in Calais, 
and forthwith ordered them to be taken down 
and carried to his native town. 

His town has other memories than his, and 
even other famous windows than "Harry's." 
There is a fine oriel window, belonging now 



THE VALLEY OF THE WYE 249 

to a school, but carefully preserved in honour 
of a twelfth-century archdeacon, who was 
none other than that Geoffrey of Monmouth 
whom Camden describes as "an Author well 
skill'd in Antiquities, but, as it seems, not of 
entire credit." I fear there is little to be 
said in defence of Geoffrey's credit as a 
historian, and there are those who say that 
his window is no more authentic than his 
writings. 

Monmouth, like Hereford, is not rich in 
relics. Of its defences, its walls and its four 
gates, there is left only one gate on the 
Monnow Bridge, but of this the foundations 
are so old that there is no record of their 
origin. The form of the gateway itself has 
been slightly altered from time to time to 
suit increasing traffic, but its picturesqueness 
is uninjured. Through its arch we must pass 
on our way to Raglan and Abergavenny and 
Llanthony. 

It is possible, of course, to see all these 
places on the same day, but it is not desir- 
able. At Raglan one should have a leisured 
mind, undisturbed by thoughts of space or 
time or possible punctures. There are seats 



250 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

on its green terraces where one might sit 
happily all day under the shadow of the 
Yellow Tower of Gwent, seeing, not only 
the straight, stern lines of the great citadel 
rising from the moat, and the beautiful 
windows beyond, and the machicolated 
towers that flank the entrance, but also, 
as clearly as these, the pageantry and 
doughty deeds of long- dead but unforgotten 
Somersets. Some of them lost their heads 
in defence of the Rose of York, and some 
lost theirs for the Rose of Lancaster, and 
one, the most famous of all, lost the home 
of his fathers in the cause of the thankless 
Stuarts. Charles I. himself — for whose sake 
all this splendour of banqueting-halls and 
state-rooms and strong defences was made 
a ruin — has stood upon this terrace and 
looked up at the great keep to which he 
was so fatal, has feasted in the Elizabethan 
Hall, has ridden between the entrance-towers 
in state, and has come to them for safety 
as a fugitive. It was after the Battle of 
Naseby that he fled for protection to the 
house whose hospitalities he knew so well, 
and whose owner, the first Marquis of 




RAGLAN CASTLE, ENTRANCE TOWER. 



THE VALLEY OF THE WYE 251 

Worcester, had raised an army of two 
thousand men to fight for the King. Some- 
where, in some dark corner within those 
walls that were then so stately. Lord 
Worcester met his ruined King by stealth, 
and being aged and infirm was obliged to 
call for help before he could kneel, as it 
behoved him, before the fugitive. "Sire," 
said the old man weeping, "I have not a 
thought in my heart that tends not to the 
service of my God and you ; " and he put 
three hundred pounds into the royal hand 
that took so much and gave so little. It 
closed upon this gift, as it closed a few 
days later upon the waistcoat that the Vicar 
of Goodrich, Dean Swift's grandfather, had 
lined with Broad Pieces. There was one 
occasion, it is true, when Charles feared 
his entertainment might be too costly to 
Lord Worcester, and suggested pleasantly 
that supplies should be wrung from the 
neighbouring peasants. But Worcester was 
prouder than the King, "My castle would 
not stand long," he said, "if it leaned upon 
the country." 

Even as matters were, his castle did not 



252 MOTOE TOURS IN WALES 

stand long. It held for the King till the 
last barrel of powder was opened; but the 
sad day came when the gallant old man of 
eighty-five passed for the last time through 
his own great gateway, between those war- 
like towers that had fought their last fight. 
He marched out to the sound of music and 
with all the honours of war, but his heart 
was broken, and after a short imprisonment 
in the custody of Black Rod, he died. " When 
I spoke with the man," he said of his guardian, 
"I found him a very civil gentleman, but I 
saw no black rod." 

With this splendid old warrior the glory 
of Raglan departed. Fairfax so dealt with 
it that neither blood nor wine should ever 
be spilt within its walls again ; and the work 
begun by him was finished by private enter- 
prise. It is said that twenty-three staircases 
have been stolen from the ruins of Raglan. 

About eight miles beyond Raglan is Aber- 
gavenny, lying peacefully — forgetful of its 
lurid past — in the shadow of the Holy 
Mountain. There is about Abergavenny 
now a peculiar serenity that is only equalled 
by the darkness of its history. Not very 



THE VALLEY OF THE WYE 253 

much is left of the Castle, of which Giraldus 
Cambrensis, the historian, said that " it was 
more dishonoured by treachery than any 
other in Wales " ; and what there is of it 
is dishonoured now by swing-boats and 
asphalt lawn-tennis courts. If these attrac- 
tions appeal to us we may enter the walls 
by paying twopence; but in the twelfth 
century the Seisyllts — the ancestors of the 
Cecils — found that entering Abergavenny 
Castle cost them more than this. One of 
them, in the absence of the Norman lord 
of the place, was having a friendly chat one 
day with the constable. There was a part 
of the wall that was in some way weaker 
than the rest, and Seisyllt, pointing laughingly 
to this spot, said in the manner of one who 
jests, " We shall come in there to-night." 
The constable took the precaution of keeping 
guard till daylight, then went to sleep. A 
few hours later he and his wife were prisoners 
and the castle was captured and burnt. 

It was after this, I believe, when the castle 
had been rebuilt, that the villain, William 
de Braose, invited the princes of South Wales 
to a banquet in these halls, picked a quarrel 



254 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

with them at his own table, and had them 
massacred before his eyes. He then solemnly 
thanked God for the fortunate issue of the 
affair, and more especially for the lands of 
the dead Seisyllts. For this William de 
Braose, traitor, murderer, and robber, never 
forgot to be pious. "He always placed the 
name of the Lord before his sentences," says 
Giraldus ; and his letters " were loaded, or 
rather honoured, with words expressive of 
the divine indulgence, to a degree not only 
tiresome to his scribe, but even to his 
auditors; for as a reward to each of his 
scribes for concluding his letters with the 
words ' by divine assistance ' he gave annually 
a piece of gold." In the matter of the mur- 
dered Seisyllts, however, his thanksgiving 
was premature, for there were Seisyllts still 
alive who fell upon Abergavenny Castle and 
demolished it. 

It raised its head again and took an active 
part in larger wars ; but it adds little nowadays 
to the attraction of Abergavenny, whose 
charms are altogether those of peacefulness 
and depend on the quiet Usk, and the hills 
that grow so purple against the evening sky. 




THE MOAT, RAGLAN CASTLE. 



THE VALLEY OF THE WYE 255 

To reach Llanthony we must drive on into 
the heart of those hills, with the Skirrid Fawr, 
or Holy Mountain, on the right and the Sugar 
Loaf on the left ; then, at Llanfihangel 
Crucorney, turn sharply to the left down a 
short but very steep hill, and so enter the 
Vale of Ewyas. Soon after passing Cwmyoy 
the road grows very narrow and hilly. At 
Llanthony we can take our car into the 
cloister-garth, for it is now the courtyard 
of an inn. 

Long ago, when Rufus was king, a horse- 
man drew rein here and looked about him. 
On every side he saw the grand, clear out- 
line of the hills, and the shadows of the 
clouds sweeping across the fern and heather, 
and the dark masses of the woods. Below 
him the little Honddu glittered among the 
trees, and far away at the head of the 
valley the heights of the Black Mountains 
rose between him and the world. And then 
and there he vowed that they should rise 
between him and the world while he lived, 
and should guard his grave when he was 
dead. We can see the same hills at this 
moment rising blue and misty behind the 



256 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

ruined towers of his Priory of Llanthony ; 
and only a few yards away, among the 
grass and nettles, we can see the spot 
where William de Lacy, soldier and monk, 
was buried under the High Altar. 

William de Lacy was not the first to 
whom this valley appealed as being *' truly 
fitted for contemplation, a happy and 
delightful spot " ; for long before his day 
this very place to which he had wandered 
by chance had been made sacred by the 
prayers of the greatest of all Welsh saints, 
St. David. We may say our prayers on the 
self-same spot to-day, for over there, just 
beyond the cloister-garth, where St. David 
had long before made himself a hermitage, 
de Lacy built a tiny chapel. For many 
centuries the richly endowed Priory has 
been deserted, roofiess, desecrated ; its very 
arches are fringed with weeds, and fowls 
peck at its grass-grown altar steps ; but over 
there in that plain little grey stone building 
prayers are still rising Sunday by Sunday 
from the spot where St. David knelt alone. 

Here in Llandewi Nanthodeni, or the 
Church of St. David beside the river 



THE VALLEY OF THE WYE 257 

Honddu, William de Lacy "laid aside his 
belt and girded himself with a rope ; 
instead of fine linen he covered himself 
with haircloth, and instead of his soldier's 
robe he loaded himself with weighty iron." 
His solitude did not last long. In those 
roystering days the sudden piety of a 
soldier of noble birth was not likely to 
pass unnoticed, and Matilda, Henry I.'s 
Queen, whom William of Malmesbury 
describes as singularly holy and by no 
means despicable in point of beauty, came 
to visit the hermit in his hill-bound cell, 
and playfully dropped a large purse of gold 
into the folds of his coarse garments. His 
fame grew. Soon there were many who 
desired to share his seclusion, and still 
more who, while not quite seeing their 
way to the forsaking of this world, were 
anxious to show their interest in the next. 
The former gave their lives and the latter 
their money, and so Llanthony Priory rose 
in all its grace and simplicity, the quiet 
lines of its architecture in perfect harmony 
with those of the great hills that en- 
circled it. " The whole treasure of the 

18 



258 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

King and his kingdom," said Henry I.'s 
Prime Minister, "would not be sufficient to 
build such a cloister." The Court was 
rather scandalised by this bold statement, 
till the Prime Minister explained that *'he 
alluded to the cloister of mountains by 
which this church is on every side sur- 
rounded." 

Giraldus describes the place as he saw it 
in the twelfth century. "A situation truly 
calculated for religion," he says, " and more 
adapted to canonical discipline than all the 
monasteries of the British Isles. . . . Here 
the monks, sitting in their cloisters enjoy- 
ing the fresh air, when they happen to 
look up towards the horizon, behold the tops 
of the mountains as it were touching the 
heavens, and herds of wild deer feeding on 
their summits." It is probable that when 
the Augustinians of Llanthony looked up 
towards the horizon it was not altogether 
for the pleasure of seeing the wild deer. 
They had other reasons for taking an 
interest in the hills, which too often were 
swarming with the hostile Welsh. It was 
not long, indeed, before the brethren's 




TIXTERN ABBEY, 



THE VALLEY OF THE WYE 259 

terror of the Welsh grew stronger than 
their love of isolation, and the greater 
number of them fled to Gloucester, where 
in a new Priory of Llanthony their medita- 
tions were undisturbed. 

The beautiful valley, with its great, bare 
hilltops and mysterious woods, its loneli- 
ness and calm, its memories of saintly men, 
attracted a poet of the last century so 
strongly that he, like William de Lacy, 
determined to stay here. Like de Lacy's 
monks, however, Walter Savage Landor 
could not get on with his neighbours, and 
after buying the ruins of the Priory and 
building himself half a house he quarrelled 
so thoroughly with all the countryside 
that he thought he would have more peace 
elsewhere. He lived in the rooms that 
now form an inn, in the Prior's Lodge, and 
here Southey stayed with him. 

This run from Monmouth to Llanthony 
is about twenty-five miles in length. If we 
are not wedded to the high-road we may 
return to Monmouth by another route — 
composed almost entirely of byways and 
in some cases very hilly ones — and so visit 



260 MOTOR TOUBS IN WALES 

Grosmont and Skenfrith Castles. The red 
towers of Grosmont stand, as the name 
implies, on a hill that is not climbed 
without an effort, and the ruin overlooks a 
village that was once a town, and indeed 
is technically a town still. It still possesses 
a charter, I believe, and a Mayor's staff ; 
but in the matter of size and prosperity it 
has been no more than a village since the 
day when Henry V., then Prince of Wales, 
wrote to his "most redoubted and most 
sovereign lord and father" in his "most 
humble manner " to this effect : " On 
Wednesday the eleventh day of this present 
month of March (1405) your rebels of the 
parts of Glamorgan, Morgannoc, Usk, 
Netherwent, and Overwent, were assembled 
to the number of eight thousand men, 
according to their own account ; and they 
went on the said Wednesday in the morn- 
ing, and burnt part of your town of 
Grosmont . . . and I immediately sent off 
my very dear cousin, the Lord Talbot, and 
the small body of my own household . . . 
who were but a very small force in all. 
. . . And there, by the aid of the Blessed 



THE VALLEY OF THE WYE 261 

Trinity, your people gained the field and 
vanquished all the said rebels, and slew of 
them by fair account on the field on their 
return from the chase, some say eight 
hundred, and some say a thousand, being 
questioned on pain of death. Nevertheless, 
whether it were one or the other, on such 
an account I would not contend." 

That was a sad day for poor Alice Scuda- 
more, who lived hard by at Kentchurch 
Court beyond the river Monnow ; for Alice 
Scudamore, or Skydmore, was the daughter 
of Owen Glyndwr, and the dead men whom 
Prince Henry left upon the field of 
Grosmont were Owen's followers. This 
defeat was Owen's first serious disaster, 
and was for him the beginning of the end. 
It is said that years later, after the end 
had come, he lived for a time with his 
daughter in the castellated tower that still 
stands below the hill of Grosmont ; and, 
indeed, Kentchurch sometimes claims to be 
his burial-place. But the claims of Mon- 
nington, where another of his daughters lived, 
are generally thought to be more authentic. 

By making a very short detour from the 



262 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

direct road we may see the ruins of Sken- 
frith Castle on our way back to Monmouth. 
Even in the seventeenth century this castle 
was described as having been "decayed 
time out of the memory of man," and its 
remains are now naturally scanty and not 
especially picturesque. Far more interesting 
than the castle is the church, with its 
pretty timbered tower and fine sixteenth- 
century tombs. At the vicarage is care- 
fully preserved the rarest treasure of this 
church : a cope that dates from the days 
before the Reformation. 

On the other side of Monmouth, beyond 
the Wye, is the Forest of Dean, where one 
may drive for miles through country nearly 
as grand and quite as thickly wooded as 
the Black Forest. In most cases the trees 
are not nearly so fine as those of our own 
New Forest, for the greater part of this 
Forest of Dean was cut down to build our 
victorious fleets of the eighteenth century ; 
but the width of view and the succession 
of tree-clad hills rising one beyond another, 
are compensations for the lack of magnifi- 
cent individual trees. Of these, however, 



THE VALLEY OF THE WYE 263 

there are a few, such as the Newland Oak 
and the High Beeches. But on the whole 
the beauty of Dean Forest lies in its dis- 
tant views, its great expanses of foliage 
stretching away from one's feet to the blue 
horizon, as at the Speech House and above 
Parkend, and at many another place; 
though unfortunately many of these views 
are partly, if not entirely, spoilt by the 
black scars and smoking chimneys of the 
collieries. The Speech House is now a 
hotel, but it was originally built in 
Charles II.'s day as a kind of Court House 
in which to settle disputes connected with 
the Forest. St. Briavel's Castle, a few 
miles further south than this, and nearer 
the Wye, is a far older relic, for it is said 
that it once sheltered King John. Be that 
as it may, the little that is left of this castle 
is pecuHarly attractive. To reach it, or the 
Speech House, or indeed to drive in the 
Forest of Dean at all, one must be prepared 
to encounter long hills with gradients in 
some places not less than 1 in 7, and roads 
that have suffered a good deal from the 
heavy traffic connected with the mines. 



264 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

There is one expedition from Monmouth 
that we cannot possibly undertake in a 
car, yet should by no means omit. The 
famous Symond's Yat, with its perfect river 
scenery, cannot be approached by road, but 
it is easy to reach it by train, and very 
delightful to return to Monmouth by water, 
past the great limestone crags known as 
the Seven Sisters. At the hotel, where the 
train deposits one, the attraction is simply 
the view of the river and its wooded 
banks, but for the energetic this view may 
be much enlarged by half an hour's climb 
to the summit of the Yat itself, where 
those who enjoy scenery in proportion to 
the number of counties visible, may have 
the satisfaction of seeing seven. It was 
near Symond's Yat, at a defile significantly 
called The Slaughter to this day, that the 
Danes, under Eric of the Bloody Axe, were 
defeated by King Alfred's son Edward the 
Elder, named also the Unconquered, whom 
Matthew of Westminster declares to have 
been " even more glorious than his father 
for power and dignity." 

The last fifteen miles of the Wye Valley, 



THE VALLEY OF THE WYE 265 

from Monmouth to Chepstow, where the 
Wye falls into the estuary of the Severn, are 
probably as beautiful as any fifteen miles 
of English road. It is late in May or early 
in October that we should drive along this 
road to see it at its best, for the whole 
landscape is filled with trees. The quiet 
river, with the road close beside it, winds 
between two wooded heights from Redbrook 
to the Severn. A gentle rise takes us out 
of Redbrook, which has spoilt its beauty 
by manufacturing tin-plate ; then we run 
down to Bigsweir Bridge, and cross it, with 
a lovely view downstream; pass Llandogo, 
where the Wye becomes tidal ; pass Brock- 
weir with its ferry ; and driving through 
Tintern Parva come within sight of the 
unsurpassed beauty of Tintern Abbey. 

Go to Tintern again and again, for it 
never palls. See it when the trees are first 
breaking into leaf, and all the leaves are 
of different colours ; and see it again 
against the heavy foliage of the summer 
woods ; and again when the hills behind 
it are red and gold in autumn. For the 
Cistercians, though they denied art, were 



266 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

surely admirable artists ; and being forbidden 
by their stern rule to adorn their churches 
with coloured glass or superfluous carving, 
they raised for themselves buildings of 
perfect form in the loveliest places in all 
England, where in spring and autumn the 
cold grey stone of their exquisite windows 
was the frame of fairer colours than were 
ever stained on glass. 

It was of this abbey that the incompar- 
able Gilpin wrote quite gravely : " A number 
of gable-ends hurt the eye with their regu- 
larity and disgust it by the vulgarity of 
their shape." A mallet, judiciously used, 
he suggested, might make improvements. 
Unfortunately time and long neglect have 
done only too much towards the ruin of 
Tintern, without any help from the judicious 
mallet of Gilpin. For many years the 
place was utterly uncared for; the stones 
were used by any one who wished to build 
a cottage, and an old beggar-woman made 
her dwelling in the library of the monks. 
This was long ago : every care is given to 
Tintern now. The floor of the nave is 
covered with well-kept turf, the fallen 




TINTERN ABBEY. 



THE VALLEY OF THE WYE 267 

fragments of masonry are gathered together, 
the weak places of the building are strength- 
ened wherever it is possible. But the 
alarming curves of the arches bear witness 
to past neglect, and the timid tourist is 
appalled by the ominous warning on the 
notice-board : " Persons who visit this Abbey 
do so at their own risk." This is discour- 
aging. 

From Tintern the road rises for about 
three miles towards the splendid scenery 
of the Wyndcliff. The river winds below, 
and beyond it among the trees a discerning 
eye may detect the straight ridge of Offa's 
Dyke. The view from the road as it passes 
beneath the famous cliff is wonderfully 
beautiful — a view of tortuous river and 
height beyond height of woodland, and 
gleaming in the distance the waters of 
the Severn estuary : and those who climb 
the Wyndcliff come down again well con- 
tented, having seen nine counties. 

As we pass the little village at St. Arvan's 
the river is completely hidden by the walls 
and trees of Piercefield Park. A gentle 
descent of about two miles brings us to 



268 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

the steep hill that winds downwards into 
Chepstow above the castle, passing under 
one of the old town-gates. 

"The towne of Chepstow hath bene very 
strongly wauUed," says Leland. " The wauUes 
began at the ende of the great bridge over 
Wy, and so cam to the castel, the which 
yet standeth fayr and strong." To all 
appearances, as seen from the further side 
of Wye, it is strong still, and fair it cer- 
tainly is, standing high upon the red cliffs 
that add so much to the beauty of this 
last bend of the river. It covers three 
acres of ground, but as it is built in a 
succession of courts, sloping upwards one 
above the other, the whole of its great 
length may be seen at once and the effect 
is very fine. This castle, since it was built 
by William FitzOsborne, Earl of Hereford, 
soon after the Conquest, has seen a good 
deal of life, and even more of death. Its 
second owner forfeited it, being of too in- 
dependent a temperament to please the King. 
William, having safely imprisoned this 
rebellious Roger, sent him as an Easter 
gift his own royal robes — an attention that 



THE VALLEY OF THE WYE 269 

was meant well, but was not very tactful. 
Earl Roger "forthwith caused a great fire 
to be made, and the mantle, the inner sur- 
coat of silk, and the upper garment, lined 
with precious furs, to be suddenly burnt." 
This was his last act of rebellion. " By 
the brightness of God," exclaimed the flouted 
King, "he shall never come out of prison 
as long as I live ! " 

Later on the castle passed to the great 
house of Clare. 

" From Chepstow's towers, ere dawn of morn, 
Was heard afar the bugle-horn ; 
And forth in banded pomp and pride 
Stont Clare and fiery Neville ride." '•' 

The greatest of the Clares, Richard Strong- 
bow, sometimes called the Conqueror of 
Ireland, was born at Chepstow ; " a man tall 
in stature," we are told, " and of great gene- 
rosity, and courteous manner. ... In time of 
peace he was more disposed to be led by 
others than to command," but " the post he 
occupied in battle was a sure rallying-point 
for his troops." 

^^ " The Norman Horse-shoe " (Sir Walter Scott.) 



270 MOTOK TOURS IN WALES 

The castle passed from hand to hand 
through the stirring centuries that followed 
Strongbow's day. In the Civil War it had 
many adventures. It held for the King at 
first, was taken by the army of the Par- 
liament, and was recaptured by a handful 
of Royalists under Sir Nicholas Kemys, by 
guile rather than by force. " On the whole," 
says Carlyle, " Cromwell will have to go. . . . 
Let him march swiftly ! " He marched swiftly 
and took the town of Chepstow, but besieged 
the castle in vain. Carlyle tells the tale in 
few words : " Castle will not surrender, — he 
leaves Colonel Ewer to do the Castle; who, 
after four weeks, does it." It was not easily, 
however, that Colonel Ewer "did it." The 
garrison, reduced to nineteen, held out till 
they were starving, and even then deter- 
mined, not on surrender, but on flight. Their 
boat lay ready beneath the walls, waiting 
for the darkness. But when night came no 
boat was there, for a soldier of the Parlia- 
ment, a man of keen eyes, had detected 
both the boat and her object, and, with a 
knife between his teeth, had swum across 
the Wye and cut the rope that moored her 



THE VALLEY OF THE WYE 271 

to the river-bank. The next day the nine- 
teen Royalists surrendered. Thus Colonel 
Ewer "did the castle." 

During the Commonwealth Jeremy Taylor, 
the author of " Holy Living and Holy Dying " 
— according to Coleridge the most eloquent 
of divines — was imprisoned in Chepstow 
Castle as a follower of Archbishop Laud: 
and here, too, when Cromwell's day was 
over, Sir Henry Marten, the regicide, suf- 
fered a mild form of imprisonment for 
twenty years. He was allowed not only to 
receive his friends but to visit them, and he 
was not deprived of the companionship of 
his wife. From what I read, however, I 
cannot assure myself that he appreciated 
the last of these privileges. He was buried 
in Chepstow Church, under an epitaph that 
he composed himself — a rhyming epitaph of 
a high moral tone. Yet neither poetry nor 
morality was Marten's strong point. At a 
later date a loyalist vicar removed from 
the chancel to the nave the bones of the 
man who had signed Charles I.'s death- 
warrant. 

Chepstow Church once formed part of 



272 MOTOR TOURS IN WALES 

a Benedictine Priory connected with the 
Norman Abbey of Cormeilles, and was ori- 
ginally the nave of a larger building. It dates 
from early in the twelfth century ; and even 
if one has not time to enter the church it 
is well worth while to drive past the beau- 
tiful Early Norman entrance. There are 
some interesting tombs within, notably that 
of the second Earl of Worcester, who was 
present at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. 

Two miles south of Chepstow is Mathern, 
where Tewdric of Glamorganshire, saint and 
king, was buried. He was killed in a battle 
fought at Tintern, and in the year 600 a 
chapel was built here as a shrine for him. 

*' Wye also," says Leland, " a very great 
and famose river, passeth through Ventland, 
and at S. Tereudake's Chapel entereth ynto 
Severn." 



INDEX 



Abbeydore, 236 

Abbey Foregate, Shrewsbury, 

24 
Aber, 101 
Aberaeron, 222 
Aberavon, 180 
Aberconwy, 82, 88 
Aberdaron, 112, 115-117 
Aberdovy, 152-155, 157 
Abergavenny, 247, 249, 252-254 
Abergele, 84, 85 
Aberglaslyn, Pass of, 94, 95, 110 
Abergwili, 190 
Aberteifi, 219 
Aberystwith, 141, 142-145, 148, 

149, 222, 225 
Agincourt, 152 
Alaw, Biver, 121 
Albright Hussey, 46, 47 
Alia Wen, 97 
Anglesey, 100-102 
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 239 
Arthur, King, 115, 167, 168, 240 
Arthur, Prince, 6, 9, 14 
Atcham, 25 
Bala, 152, 159-161 
Bala, Lake of, 159, 162 
Baldwin, Archbishop, 102, 118, 

119, 172 
Bangor, 98 
Bardsey, 112, 115 
Baring-Gould, Kev. S., 147 
Barlow, Bishop, 199, 213, 214 
Barmouth, 123, 125, 128, 222 
Barmouth Estuary, 125, 126, 

152, 155, 156, 158 
Baron Hill, 101 
Bassetts, 174 
Battlefield, 34 
Baxter, Eichard, 27, 43, 44 
Bayston HiU, 12 
Beaupre, 62, 165, 173-175 
Beaumaris, 99, 100-102 
Bedd Gelert, 95, 110 
Belesme, Robert de, 43 



Benbow, Admiral, 45 
Bendigeid Vran, 120, 121 
Berkeley Castle, 170 
Berwyn, 77 
Bethesda, 98 
Bettws-y-Coed, 81, 82, 85, 91, 

92, 94, 95, 108 
Borth, 113, 149 
Boscobel, 29, 31-33, 44 
Bigsweir Bridge, 265 
Birmingham Waterworks, 229 
Bishop's Castle, 52, 55, 56 
Black Mountains, 232, 255 
Bolingbroke, 85 
Borrow, George, 69, 79, 107, 

109, 141, 187, 222 
Boteler of Dunraven, 177, 178 
Brampton Brian, 58, 59 
Branwen, 120, 121 
Braose, Matilda de, 186, 187 
Braose, William de, 185, 186, 

253 254 
Brecon, 151, 183, 185-187 
Brecon Beacons, 184, 185, 187 
Breidden Hills, 62, 134 
Bridgend, 177, 178, 180 
Bridge SoUars, 234, 236 
Bridgnorth, 42-45 
Bridstow, 240 
Briton Ferry, 180, 181 
Brockweir, 265 
Bromfield, 10 
Broseley, 45 
Browning, Robert, 71 
Brychan, 185 
Brydges, Charles, 24 
Buildwas, 26-28, 44 
Builth, 222, 230, 231 
Butler, Lady Eleanor, 71 
Bwloh Oerdrws, 132, 133 

Cadell, Prince of South 
Wales, 146 ^ _„ , ^^ 

Cader Idris,125,126,132,157,158 
Caerleon, 115, 166-169, 216 
273 



19 



274 



INDEX 



CaerphiUy, 166, 169, 170 
Caersws, 138 
Caldey Island, 198 
Camden, 89, 98, 233, 235, 249 
Cann Oface, 133 
Capel Curig, 96, 108 
Caradoc, 12, 25 
Caradoc of Llancarvan, 87, 194 
CardifE, 166, 170, 171, 173 
CardifE Waterworks, 184 
Cardigan, 219-221 
Carew Castle, 205-208 
Carew, Celtic Cross, 205 
Carlyle, Thomas, 203, 270 
Carmarthen, 187, 190-195, 222 
Carnarvon, 85, 99, 103-105 
Carningley, 218 
Castell Crogen, 68 
Cans Castle, 54 
Cawdor, Lord, 218 
Cefn-y-Bedd, 231 
Ceiriog, River, 64, 67, 68 
Ceiriog, Valley of the, 67, 
Ceirw, River, 79 
Cernioge, 79, 80 
Cerrig Cennen, 189, 190 
Cerrig-y-Druidion, 78, 79 
Charles I., 15, 17, 20, 43, 91, 

122, 242, 250, 251, 271 
Charles XL, 29,31-33,69 
Chastillon, Battle of, 48 
Chepstow, 225,247,265,268-272 
Chester, Hugh, Earl of, 98 
Chirbury, 52-54 
Chirbury, Lord Herbert of, 

52-54 
Chirk, 64, 67-69 
Churchstoke, 55 
Cilgerran, 187, 220, 221 
Clare, GUbert de, 169 
Clifiord Castle, 234 
Clifford, Jane de, 234 
Clun, 56-58 
Clungunford, 60 
Clwyd, River, 84 
Clynnogfawr, 112, 117, 118 
Cochwillan Woods, 98 
Coity, 179-180 
Coleridge, 22, 271 



Colwyn Bay, 85 
Comus, 8 
Concenn, 76 

Conway, 82, 85, 86, 88-90 
Conway, River, 80, 83 
Corbet, Captain, 54 
Corbet, Sir Vincent, 51 
Cormeilles, Abbey of, 272 
Corris, 152, 155, 157 
Corwen, 68, 77, 78, 161 
Cothercott Hill, 55 
Cothi, River, 222 
Cound, 38 
Cowbridge, 173 
Cox, David, 82 
Craven Arms, 60 
Cressage, 38, 39 
Criccieth, 112-114 
Crogen, Battle of, 68 
Cromwell, Oliver, 43, 85, 120, 
144, 157, 203, 243, 270, 271 
Cross Foxes, 158 
Cross Houses, 38 
Cwm By Chan, 123, 130 
Cwm Hir Abbey, 139 
Cwmyoy, 255 
Cymmer Abbey, 126 

Dafydd ap Gwilym, 147 
Dale, 202 

Darby, Abraham, 28 
Darwin, Charles, 18, 22, 61 
Davy Gam, 151, 152 
Dean,Forest of ,143,247,262,263 
Dee, River, 49, 69, 70, 74, 76, 

77, 85, 161, 162 
Deganwy, 86-88, 106 
Derwydd Station, 190 
Despensers, 170 
Devereux, Penelope, 200 
Devil's Bridge, 141 
Dinan, de, 9 
Dinas Bran, 70, 71 
Dinas Mawddy, 132, 133 
Dinmore Hill, 236 
Dolbadarn, 92, 105 
Doldowlod Woods, 230 •■ 
DolgeUey, 126, 128, 129, 130, 

131, 132, 152, 155, 158, 159 



INDEX 



275 



Dolwyddelan, 82, 92, 93, 94 
Dore, Kiver, 235 
Dryslwyn Castle, 190 
Dubritius, 115, 240 
Dulas, River, 157 
Dunraven, 177 
Dwryd, River, 118, 119 
Dyfi (Dovey), River, 131, 149, 

152-155, 157 
Dynevor, 187, 188, 189, 190 

Eaton Constantine, 26, 27, 44 
Edeyrnion, Vale of, 77 
Edmund, Prince, 6 
Edward the Black Prince, 113 
Edward the Elder, 264 
Edward I., 21, 42, 82, 84, 86, 

92, 102, 114, 120, 144, 194, 

212, 236, 237 
Edward II., 42, 104, 170, 182 
Edward IV., 5, 6, 120, 122, 209 
Edward V., 6, 7 
Egerton, Lady Alice, 8 
Eglwyseg Rocks, 70 
Elan Valley, 227-230 
Eleanor, Queen, 104, 212 
Elfreton, Henry de, 88,120,169 
Eliseg's Pillar, 76 
Elizabeth, Queen, 89, 91, 244 
Ellesmere, 45, 50 
Erbistock, 45, 49, 50 
Eric of the Bloody Axe, 264 
Erwood, 232 
Essex, Earl of, 14, 200 
Ethelbert, King, 238, 239 
Ethelfleda, 15, 53, 185 
Ewenny, 173, 178, 179, 195 
Ewer, Colonel, 270, 271 
Ewyas, Vale of, 247, 255-259 
Exmoor, 173, 177 

Faibbourne, 155 
Fairfax, General, 203, 252 
Fair Rosamund, 234 
Feathers Hotel, Ludlow, 4, 5 
Fishguard, 217, 218 
Fitz-Osborne, Roger, 268, 269 
Fitz-Osborne, William, 268 
Fitz-Warines, 64 
Flemings, 140, 208,209,219,226 



Flint, 85 

Fuller, Thomas, 48 

Ganllwyd, Vale of, 129, 130 
Geirionydd, Lake, 91, 149 
Geoffrey of Monmouth, 249 
George IV., 243 
Gildas, 175 
Gilpin, 242, 266 
Giraldus Cambrensis, 100, 102, 
118, 119, 198, 209, 215, 253, 
254, 258 
Glamorganshire, 173 
Glan Dovey, 150 
Glasbury, 232 

Glaslyn, River, 109, 110, 118 
Gloucester, 259 
Glydyrs, 97 
Glyn Ceiriog, 68 
Glyndwr, Owen, 57, 61, 74, 77, 
88, 98, 104, 106, 116, 120, 
122, 127, 128, 131, 140, 143, 
144, 148, 150-152, 191, 192, 
208, 226, 233, 234, 261 
Glyndyffws, Pass of, 78 
Glyndyfrdwy, 77, 78 
Glyn-Neath, 183 
Gobowen, 64 
Godiva, 41 
Godstow, 234 
Golden Valley, 235 
Goodrich, 244, 245, 246 
Goodrich, Vicar of, 251 
Goodwick, 217 
Gower, 192 

Gower, Bishop, 199, 212, 213 
Grey, Lord, of Ruthin, 106 
Griffith ap Cynan, 155 
Griffith Gryg, 147 
Griffith ap Llewelyn, 113 
Griffith ap Nicholas, 187 
Griffith, Prince of Gwynedd, 87 
Griffith, Prince of South 

Wales, 219 
Grosmont, 260, 261 
Guinevere, 166 
Gwaelod, Plain of, 123 
Gwenllian, daughter of the 
Lord Rhys, 194, 195 



276 



INDEX 



Gwenllian, mother of the 
Lord Ehys, 195, 214, 219 

Gwyddno Longshanks, 124 

Gwydir, 91 

Gwynedd, 91, 92, 100, 112, 118, 
154, 220 

Gwynne, Nell, 69 

Hanmer, 49 

Harlech, 85, 88, 116, 119-122, 

128, 129 
Harley, Lady, 58, 59 
Harold, King, 98, 237 
Haughmond Abbey, 36-38 
Haughmond Hill, 34 
Haverfordwest, 205, 208-210 
Hawkestone, 35 
Hay, 62, 232-284, 235, 246 
Hazlitt, William, 22 
Heber, Bishop, 36 
HenUan Woods, 221 
Henry L, 42, 209 
Henry II., 37, 42,50,68,189,212 
Henry III. , 37, 233 
Henry IV., 20, 34, 42, 85, 101, 

120,122,131,148,192, 245,260 
Henry V., 34, 78, 143, 144, 

152, 245, 247, 248, 260, 261 
Henry VII., 13, 14, 61, 157, 

193, 202, 206 
Henry VIII.,37,172,182,213-14 
Herbert, George, 53 
Herbert, Lord, of Chirbury, 

52-54 
Hereford, 143, 225, 226, 235, 

236-239, 243, 246 
Hereford, Archdeacon of, 192 
Herefordshire, 232, 235 
Hirwain, 183 
Hodnet, 35, 36 

Holyhead Koad, 60, 77, 95, 161 
Holy Mountain, 247, 252, 255 
Honddu, River, 255, 257 
Hookagate, 55 
Hope Valley, 56 
Hotspur, Harry, 34, 89 
Howel y Fwyall, 113 
Howel Sele, 127, 128 
Huntsham Ferry, 245 



Inigo Jones, 82, 83 
lolo Goch, 74 
lorwerth, 93 
Ireland, 121, 215 
Ironbridge, 28, 44, 45 
Isabella, Queen, 237 
Ivetsey Bank, 33 

James I. , 247 
James II., 17 
Jeffreys, Judge, 27, 47 
Jeremy Taylor, 271 
Joan, Queen, 50, 90, 101 
John, King, 42, 50, 86, 87, 90, 

98, 106, 186, 237, 263 
John of Gaunt, 212, 237, 247 
Johnson, Dr., 22, 27, 98 

Katherine of Arragon, 6 
Kenfig, 180 

Kemys, Sir Nicholas, 270 
Kentchurch, 261 
Kidwelly, 174, 194, 195 
Kilgerran, 187, 220, 221 
Kingsley, Charles, 109 
Knighton, 56, 58, 137 
Kymin, The, 245 
Kyrle, John, 240-242 

Lacy, Roger de, 9 
Lacy, William de, 256-259 
Lampeter, 221, 222 
Lamphey Palace, 199, 200, 213 
Landor, Walter Savage, 259 
Laud, Archbishop, 271 
Ledbury, 235 
Leicester, Earl of, 14, 91 
Leighton-under-the- W r e k i n, 

27 
Leintwardine, 56, 58, 59 
Leland, 50, 56, 70, 105, 117, 

130, 133, 146, 169, 177, 181, 

192, 198, 202, 211, 232, 237, 

268, 272 
Leofric of Mercia, 41 
Leominster, 235 
Letton, 234, 236 
Lewis, Rev. Edward, 53, 54 
Little Doward, 245 



INDEX 



277 



Little Stretton, 12 
Liverpool Reservoir, 161 
Llanaellraiarn, 112, 117 
Llanbadarn Pawr, 148 
Llanbedr, 119, 122, 123, 124, 125 
Llanberis, Pass of, 94, 95, 105, 

107, 109 
Llanberis, Town, 105 
Llandaff, 171-173 
Llandeilo, 188, 190 
Llandinam, 139 
Llandogo, 265 
Llandovery, 187, 222 
Llandrindod Wells, 231 
Llandysilio, 102 
Llandyssil, 221 
LlaneUtyd, 126 
Llanfaes, 101 
Llanfair Caereinion, 133 
Llanfair P. G., 100 
Llanfihangel Crucorney, 255 
Llanfrother, 240 
Llanfyllin, 161 
Llangadfan, 133 
Llangadoch, 188 
LlangoUen, 60, 67, 70-73 
Llangollen, Ladies of, 71-73 
Llangurig, 139, 140, 226, 227 
Llanidloes, 139 
Llanrhaiadr, 159, 162 
Llanrhychwyn, 90 
Llanrwst, 82, 83 
Llanthony, 247, 249, 255-259 
Llanthony,SecondPrioryof,259 
Llantwit Major, 166, 173, 175, 

176, 216 
Llanwrtyd WeUs, 222, 231 
Llechryd, 221 
Lledr Valley, 80, 92, 94 
Llewelyn, the Great, 37, 50, 57, 

82, 86, 87, 90, 91, 92, 101, 

110, 113, 127, 233 
Llewelyn III., 102, 106, 231 
Lleyn Peninsula, 111-118 
Llugwy, 82, 95 
Llyfnant Valley, 150 
Llyn Dinas, 110 
Llyn Gwynant, 109 
Llyn Mymbyr, 108 



Llyn Padarn, 105 

Llyn Peris, 105 

Llyn Tegid (Bala), 162 

Llyswen, 232 

Lockhart, 72, 73, 108 

Londres, Maurice de, 179, 194, 

219 
Longden, 55 
Lucy Waters, 211 
Ludford, 4 
Ludlow, 4-10 
Lydstep, 198 

Mabinogion, 120, 167 
Machynlleth, 148, 150-162, 

155, 157 
Maddox, Mr,, 111 
Madeley, 28, 29 
Madoc, Prince of Powys, 70, 

73,74 
Maelgwyn, 86, 106, 107, 154, 155 
Maentwrog, 93,94, 128, 129, 130 
Mallwyd, 133 
Malvern Hills, 245 
Manorbier Castle, 197-199 
Marches, Court of the, 5, 96 
Margam, 180 
Market Drayton, 36 
Marrington Dingle, 55 
Marrington Hall, 54 
Marshbrook, 12, 55 
Marteg, River, 227 
Marten, Sir Henry, 271 
Marton, 52 

Mary, Queen, 6, 15, 244 
Mathern, 272 
Matholwch, King of Ireland, 

120, 121 
Matilda, Queen, 37, 257 
Matthew of Westminster, 239, 

264 
Mawddach, River, 125, 126, 

129, 152, 157, 158 
Maxen Wledig, 168 
Mellte, River, 183 
Menai Bridge, 99 
Menai Straits, 99, 102, 103 
Menevia, 216 
Meredyth ap Conan, 119 



278 



INDEX 



Merlin, 192, 216 
]\Iilburga, Princess, 39-41 
Milford Haven, 200, 205, 208 
Milton, 8, 138, 162 
Minsterley, 56 
Mochras, Point of, 124 
Moel OfErwm, 127, 129 
Mona, 100-102, 121 
Monmouth, 243, 246-249 
Monmouth, Duke of, 211 
Monnington, 234, 261 
Monnow, River, 261 
Montfort Bridge, 61 
Montfort, Simon de, 236, 237 
Montgomery, 53, 54 
Montgomery, Arnulph de, 201 
Montgomery, Roger de, 13, 20, 

23, 40, 41 
Morfa Nevin, 114 
Morfa Rhuddlan, 84 
Mortimer, Edmund, 116, 122 
Much Birch, 240 
Much Wenlock, 39-42 
Mumbles, The, 180 
Murchard, Prince of Leinster, 

215 
Myddleton, Sir Thomas, 69 
Myfanwy, Princess, 71, 74 
Mynach, River, 141, 142 
Mytton, General, 89 

Nannau, 127, 128 
Nant Ffrancon, 94, 95, 97 
Nantgarw, 170 
Nant Gwynant, 94, 95, 109 
Naseby, Battle of, 250 
Neath, 173, 181, 182 
Neath, River, 181, 182 
Neath, Vale of, 182, 183 
Nelson, Lord, 193 
Nennius, 191 
Nest, Princess, 202 
Neuf-March6, Bernard de, 185- 

187 
Nevern, 218 
Nevin, 112, 114, 115 
Newbridge, 230 
Newcastle Emlyn, 221 
Newgale, 211 



Newport, Mon., 166, 168, 169 
Newport, Pembroke, 218 
Newport, Salop, 36 
Newtown, 138, 225 
Non, 216 
Northumberland,Earlof,85,116 

Oakengates, 33 

Ofia, 69, 238, 239 

Ofia's Dyke, 69, 267 

Ogwen, Lake, 96, 97 

Ogwen, River, 98 

Onibury, 10 

Onny, River, 10 

Oswestry, 62 

Oteley, 51 

Overton, 45, 49 

Owen Gwynedd, 68, 99, 195,219 

Owen's Mount, 78 

Pant-y-Geoes, 73 
Parkend, 263 
Payer, Colonel, 203 
Pembroke, 200-208 
Pembrokeshire, Coast of, 204 
Penmaenmawr, 100 
Pennal, 153 
Pennant, 97, 117, 160 
Penrhyn Castle, 98 
Penrhyndeudraeth, 94 
Penrhyn Quarries, 98 
Pentre Voelas, 80, 92 
Pen-y-Groes, 118 
Pen-y-Gwryd, 108, 109 
Percy, Bishop, 44 
Perrot, Sir John, 206 
Peverels of the Peak, 63, 64 
Piercefield Park, 267 
PistyU-y-Rhaiadr, 162 
Plynlimmon, 139, 140, 222, 225 
Ponsonby, Miss, 71 
Pont Neath Fechan, 183 
Pontrhydfendigaidmynachlog- 

fawr, 100 
Pont-y-Croes, 118 
Pont-y-Cysylltau, 70 
Pont-y-Pair, 82 
Pope, 240, 241 
Perth Clais, 216 
Portmadoc, 111, 112, 118 



INDEX 



279 



Pumpsaint, 222 

Pwllheli, 112, 113, 114, 117 

Queen's Head Inn, 62 
Quendritha, Queen, 239 

Baglan, 247, 249-252 
Ranulph of Normandy, 237 
Batlinghope, 55 
Bedbrook, 265 
BichardlL, 85,86, 209 
Bichard's Castle, 235 
Bidgeway, The, 197, 199 
Bivals, The, 112, 117 
Bhayader, 191, 227-230 
Bheiddol, Biver, 142 
Bhianedd, Marsh of, 107 
Bhuddlan, 82, 83-85 

^IVlk m. 195, 2U, 

219, 220, 228 
Bhys ap Thomas, 193, 205, 

206, 207 
Bhysgog HiU, 77 
Bobert of Normandy, 171 
Bobert of Bhuddlan, 86, 106 
Boche Castle, 210 
Boderic the Great, 188 
Boman Gravels, 56 

Boman Steps, 123, 130 

Boss, 240-243, 246 

Boyal Oak, 31 

Boyal Oak Hotel, Bettws, 82 

Boyal Oak Inn, Fishguard, 218 

Bupert, Prince, 15, 50 

Buskin, 73 



Sabeina, 138 

St. Alkmund's, Shrewsbury, 

St. Alkmund's, Whitchurch, 

47,48 
St. Aryan's, 267 
St. Beuno, 117, 118 
St. Briavel's, 263 
St. Brynach, Cross of, 218 
St. Chad's (New), Shrewsbury, 

22 
St. Chad's (Old), Shrewsbury, 
16, 17, 21 



St. CoUen's, Llangollen, 73 
St. David, 115, 117, 148, 175, 

216,240,256 
St. David's, 115, 210, 211, 217 
St. Deiniol, 99 
St. Donat's, 173, 176, 177 
St. Germanus, 191 
St. lUtyd, 175, 176 
St.Mary's,Sbrewsbury,16,17,18 

St. Padarn, 148 
St. Patrick, 215, 216 
St. Peter's, Carmarthen, 193 
St. Samson, 176 
St. Teilo, 171 
St. Tewdric, 272 
Scott, Sir Walter, 57, 72, 108 
Scudamore, Alice, 261 
Seisyllts (Cecils), 253, 254 
Seithenyn, 124 ^^ , ^ ^i 
Severn, 13, 25, 26, 28, 45 61, 
133,137,139,226,265,267,272 

Siabod, Moel, 81, 93, 96 
Sidney, Ambrozia, 8, 9, 
Sidney, Philip, 8. 18, 19, 200 
Sidney, Sir Henry, 8, 19, 20 
SheUey, 111, 230 
Shelley, Harriet, 111, 230 
Shelton Oak, 61 
Shifnal,29 , ,, ^^ 

Shrewsbury, 12-24, 46, 60 
Shrewsbury Abbey, 13, 22-24 
Shrewsbury, Battle of, 21, id 

61, 191 
Shrewsbury Castle, 20, 21 
Shropshire, 1-64, 134, 162 
Skenfrith, 260, 262 
Skirrid Fawr, 255 ,^„ ,^o 
Snowdon, 81, 96, 100, 107, 108, 

109 122 
Snowdonia,80,94,100,108,lll 

Solva, 211 
Southerndown, 177 
Southey, 259 
Speech House, 263 
Spenser, 243 
Stack Bocks, 204 
Steele, Bichard, 193 
Stephen, King, 20, 37 
Stokesay Castle, 10, 11 



280 



INDEX 



strata Florida, 141, 145-148 

Strongbow, Richard, 144, 269 

Sugar Loaf Mountain, 255 

Swallow Falls, 95 

Swift, Dean, 47 

Sycharth, 77, 78 

Symond's Yat, 226, 245, 216,264 

TALBOT,lst Earl of Shrewsbury, 

48, 245, 260 
Taliesin, 91, 107, 149, 176 
Tal-y-Bont, 149 
Tan-y-Bwlch, 94, 129 
Tal-y-Llyn, 155, 158 
Teify, River, 145, 219, 220, 221 
Telford, 21, 28, 43, 60, 79, 97, 99 
Teme, River, 4, 5, 137 
Tenby, 178, 195-197 
Tintern, 225, 226, 246, 247, 

265-267, 272 
Tintern Parva, 265 
Tomen-y-Bala, 160 
Tong, 29, 30 
Tostig, 237 

Towy, River, 187, 188 
Towyn, 155, 156 
Traeth Maelgwyn, 154 
Traeth Mawr, 111, 118, 119 
Trawscoed, 145, 148 
Trawsfynydd, 129 
Trecastle, 187 
Trefriew, 90, 91 
Tremadoc, 111, 118 
Tre-Taliesin, 149 
Tryfaen, 97 
Tudor, Edmund, 214 
Tudor, Jasper, 172 
Tudor, Owen, 237 
Tyn-y-Groes, 129 
Tyn-y-Nant, 79 

Upper Corris, 158 
Upper Wye, 226 
Uriconium, 25, 26 
Usk, River, 166, 187, 264 

Valle Crucis, 71, 73-76 
Vaughan, Dean, Tomb of, 178 
Vaughans of Dunraven, 178 
Vernon, Dorothy, 30 



Vernon, Sir Henry, 30 
Vickers, Dick, 79 
Vortigern, 190, 191 
Vyrnwy, Lake, 161 

Wales, Mid, 137-162 
Wales, North, 67-134 
Wales, South, 165-222 
Walpole, Horace, 52 
Walton, Isaac, 54 
Warwick, Dowager Lady, 69 
Watling Street, 33 
Watt, James, 230 
Wellington, 33 
Welshpool, 133, 134 
Wem, 45, 47 
Wenlock Priory, 38-42 
Westbury, 52 
Whitchurch, 45, 47 
Whitney, 234 
Whittington, 62-64 
Widemarsh, Hereford, 236 
WiUiam L, 212, 268, 269 
William II., 212, 216 
William of Malmesbury, 16, 

39, 257 
Wilton, 243, 244 
Windsor, Gerald de, 201, 205 
Wnion, River, 126 
Worcester, 2nd Earl of, 272 
Worcester, 1st Marquis of, 261, 

252 
Worthen, 62 
Wrekin, 12 
Wroxeter, 25 
Wyaston Leys, 246 
Wye, 69, 139, 140, 222, 226, 

266, 268, 272 
Wye, Valley of the, 226-272 
Wyndclifi, 267 
Wynnes of Gwydir, 82, 89, 91, 

95,96 

York, Archbishop of, 89 
York, Richard Duke of, 22 
Yr Eifl, 112, 117 
Ysgubor-y-Coed, 160 
Ystradfaur, 146-148 
Ystwith, River, 145 
Y Wyddfa, 107 



UNWIN BBOTHBBS, LIMITED, PRINTERS, WOKING AND LONDON. 



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